"SLIP SLIDIN' AWAY"

by Susan Dunn
Date Somewhere deep in the heart of me

In the peach-fuzz shadows of my most lavender memories

There’s a man who held me this way,

And we danced together, perfectly, until the end of time,

Into eternity, til death do us part,

When the world was never that young,

And I was never that thin,

And I couldn’t wear pink anyway,

And he was the one that got away.

Life is a dance and there’s a rhythm to it

And not 2 men in 10 know how to waltz.

The only good waltz I ever had was with Manny,

Whose last name I didn’t even know,

In a Country & Western dance hall

And I was wearing jeans.

The waltz my dad was supposed to give his daughter

Was a wild polka the night we had the Boch Beer Festival at our house

And my feet never even touched the ground.

I guess if I piece the different parts of my memories together,

I can come up with a whole that approximates what I had in mind

When I was in young.

Fred had the sophistication, though we never danced,

And was mine only one night, and then years later forever – he announced –

But only as a friend, though I’m the only woman he ever loved, he also announced.

How could I not love Fred –

His dreams are as screwed up as mine;

And I became that thin, finally, after my son died;

And I wore pink to my daughter-in-law’s bridal shower,

The woman who now holds my fate in her hands –

The keeper of my only son and my only grandchild.

Nevertheless, it appears that the dance that will have no end

Will be the dance with my ex-husband,

A sort of tortured red shoes thing,

And the only one who ever bowed and said, “May I have this dance?”

And could possibly hold his head and shoulders that way, was the son that died.

The man who could have carried it all off – the suit, the stance, the look, the dance?

I don’t think that would make up for all the things he wasn’t learning while he was learning that –

Like I can’t picture him later that night in his boxer shorts

Letting the dog out and turning on the dishwasher,

Can you?

And maybe the time I laughed with Nick until my sides ached,

In a dumpy Greek restaurant on the south side of town,

Was better than this,

As far as memories go.

Susan Dunn has been collecting quotes from great authors since she was
in high school. She is a voracious reader. Her line-dancing is an
an accidental result of winding up in a country & western town like
San Antonio, Texas, but that's a story for another day.