WE DANCED . . .

By Susan Dunn
December 2000

Art by Tansey

At the edge of a precipice

He lowered his golden head and bowed to me

“May I have this dance?” he asked,

“Certainly,” said I, curtseying,

And we danced!

Ah no, more precisely we waltzed –

The dance of a Leo lady and a Virgo gentleman.

Turning on the ball of his black tennis-shoe shod foot,

He bade the orchestra begin

And in 3/3 time,

His elbows extended with mine in the fashion of the Viennese,

His patrician nose so well-suited for a waltz,

There between god’s own eyes.

He lifted me,

Pushing off against the face of the cliff

With the tip of one black tennis shoe

And spun me out across the cavern --

“There’s Bill’s house,” he called,

Holding one end of the ribbon unwinding from my waist,

“on an island here, not Oregon,”

And an echo returned his deep parasympathetic* tones –

Gone… gone…gone…gone

The claws of the eagle whose path I crossed as I dropped g’s

My mouth stretched out like salt water taffy

And in the exact shade of the rose he’d placed in my lapel –

I always did like a surprise! –

Got tangled up in my hair

And ecstatically pulled each strand upward

As I fell downward,

Then completely a maenad,

And the young Bacchus threw back his head and laughed,

Tossing stars out of his pony tailed hair into the night sky

As it was growing dark.

And though I never thought of a bottom to any of it,

Before I hit it,

There was suddenly his hand in front of me

With tiny little needle marks all over the palm

And he clasped my wrist

And I closed my hand around the tracks on his wrist

The way an acrobat would –

“Being on the tightrope is living,” said the Flying Wallenda,

Who died as he lived,

And also, to his way of thinking enflagrante delicto,**

Fooled by a fickle breeze high above Manhattan,

Though it might as well have been in Zundalu,

Though it might as well have been no folly,

As he was growing old

And “being on the tightrope is living. Everything else is waiting.”

And some are just not made for the waiting.

Gently he caught me up and placed me back on the edge of the precipice,

Lining my two feet up next to each other, precisely,

Putting me back the way he had found me,(special footnote#)

And reaching up to grab some stars that were just the right size

To make me a perfect crown,

For he was Born of Another World

And the stars knew his name –

Jewel, the Jewel in my Crown –

He handed it to me,

Bowed with a soundless click of his black tennis shoe heels,

Slipped his hand out of mine,

Said “I love you Mum,”

And stepped off into another world.

Donatio mortis causa.***

We danced –

Once with 5 lb. Maine lobsters on our heads,

And oh, dear god,

I miss him so.

It’s dark down here, and cold,

And my dancing shoes are frozen and old,

But at night when he hears me crying,

He flings me a handful of stars.

READERS NOTE'S---
* Parasympathetic—there’s a theory that men who are born with anesthesia or especially c-sections (like my son Chester) learn fight, fight, give up, die. They are prone to depression and suicide and are languid and have deep voices (Chet). Marshall, my other son, the sympathetic type, was born with no anesthesia. They learn fight, fight win, have much physical energy and high voices.

** enflagrante delicto is a medical term for when a man dies in the act of having sexual intercourse .. of course most people would just say he died happy

** donatio mortis causa means a deathbed bequest

(special footnote)# He used to line his toys up just so after play, all in a neat row, back where they belonged.

Samuel Chester Dunn at orderly play

Susan's son Chester died of an overdose of heroin, cocaine, alcohol and marijuana
a half year short of 21 and a thousand miles from home.

She traveled halfway across the country to tuck her child in and kiss him goodnight
one very last time before they gently removed his life support.

She has cried herself to sleep every night since that night, April 2, 1999.
If you have a baby boy, hold him very close tonight.