Summer Dance

I miss those times at the beach when we’d boogie the night away.
We don’t really want to nap at midday. It just overtakes us. Instead of submerging ourselves in the ocean’s foam,
we empty all our energy onto a soft foam mattress.
I desperately want to dance the shuffle beneath the bar’s colorful string lights.
Dancing and rhythm have always been a part of me.
Now they’re in my head, so I bounce to the beat.
I watch tan, glossy-skinned girls in short skirts and halter tops. They know nothing of being eighty. Maybe someday they will.
It surely went by fast for me.
I was a tan girl in short shorts, even in my forties, when I looked twenty-five.
But being that appealing could, at times, be a burden.
The men wanted me.
I wanted them to want me, but I didn’t want them.
I am happy now and don’t have to worry about men clamoring after me.
I’m eighty-two, with the man of my dreams.
We’ll drink gin and tonic with lime and slow dance to the music on our porch beneath the string lights.
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