Why does it have to be your favourite song playing
Whenever you’re the only one not asked to dance.
There is a sadness in
the not being asked
that outdistances anything since.
When I showed up at the tea dance
I’d got it all wrong,
I thought they’d said dresses.
You want it not to matter.
And it does,
so very much.
It’s not that you even
want the boys
who don’t want you.
You just want to feel
somehow
good enough.
Girls have it right nowadays.
They dance together.
They don’t wait for a boy.
Don’t wait for permission.
To hell with waiting,
they say.
To hell with waiting,
because you can wait
a long time.
A sequence of my poems has been published in a hardcover book entitled The Music of Leaving Poems by Tricia McCallum