By Matthew J. Andrews
There’s this guy who dances for me, a bearded man in blue jeans and a collared shirt draped over his dad bod. It’s not an extravagant dance – the arms pump like he’s pulling at a rope and his ass bounces in a lazy twerk – but it’s hypnotic. Whenever he dances, people can’t help but drop whatever they’re doing and join in. One by one they copy the movements until it’s a mass of bodies gyrating in perfect unity. I get the sense that I am watching something special: the birth of a movement or the advent of some new era. All these lives diverted from their paths to be wrapped up in the orbit of these blue jeans. It makes me long for something bigger than myself, for a song to sweep me off my feet. I press my thumb down on the congregation, and in one quick flick they are all gone, flung into the void the way paper shreds are discarded into the fire. In their place is a woman in dark jeans and a crop top. She reaches one hand to the sun and the other down to the dirt, the hips start to move, and now she is dancing for me too.
Matthew J. Andrews is a private investigator and writer. He is the author of I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember, and his poetry has appeared in Rust + Moth, Pithead Chapel, and EcoTheo Review, among others. He can be contacted at matthewjandrews.com.
MoonPark Review 