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 Contents | May 2003 More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly. |
A Morris Dance
Across the Common, on a lovely May by Mary Jo Salter ..... day in New England, I see and hear the Middle Ages drawing near, bells tinkling, pennants bright and gay— a parade of Morris dancers. One plucks a lute. One twirls a cape. Up close, a lifted pinafore exposes cellulite, and more. O why aren't they in better shape, the middle-aged Morris dancers? Already it's not hard to guess their treasurer—her; their president—him; the Wednesday-night meetings at the gym. They ought to practice more, or less, the middle-aged Morris dancers. Short-winded troubadours and pages, milkmaids with osteoporosis— what really makes me so morose is how they can't admit their ages, the middle-aged Morris dancers. Watching them gamboling and tripping on Maypole ribbons like leashed dogs, then landing, thunderously, on clogs, I have to say I feel like skipping the middle-aged Morris dancers. Yet bunions and receding gums have humbled me; I know my station— a member of their generation. Maybe they'd let me play the drums, the middle-aged Morris dancers.
Mary Jo Salter's fifth book of poems, Open Shutters, will be published this month. She is the Emily Dickinson Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College. Copyright © 2003 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; May 2003; A Morris Dance; Volume 291, No. 4; 98. |
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