Why Am I Not Invited to Your Party?
       

And what are your parties like without me?
Dancing? Is there dancing?
I used to dance. I danced like someone being stung
by ferocious bees. Agony was my means. I danced
to words I've never said aloud:
like scullery and larder.
And whenever what was playing stopped
I poured myself back into my body
like a deer at the side of a highway turning
away from the impulse to cross.
And exactly because I was all over the grid
someone left the party
saddled in the biggest gleaming body, hooved.
So if you keep me off your party list
I guess I can't make myself understand.
More than once I sacrificed my dignity
on the slab of a kitchen island.
More than once I danced off the cliff
and let everyone, first, jump from my back.
It was what we call wonderful, wasn't it?
It was. That's what it was.

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Copyright © 2018 Lee Upton All rights reserved
from FIELD
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission