DEAD TREES

Once they were the life,

dancing under twinkling balls

and wearing their best gold.

They hugged you like

the Queen embracing a cripple "Commoner"

and you wanted to sniff their

most secret places, make them

sigh with your red tongue.

They were "cute"--

slender, chiseled, and muscled--

the color of coffee, the color of sand,

and if they had a dimple,

Lord, lord, say no more.

Now they are silent.

the eyes once lighted

are dimmed. They still come

to this place, pulled by

their lust to live

and hear the music, to not die.

In this place, where

they made their minor histories,

they stand to themselves

like old discarded props.

They have a new DJ

in this place

who in his dazzling white coat

and Bunsen Burners for eyes

calls out "Divas to the Dance Floor,"

but the divas are rooted

like young dead trees.

Charles Harvey

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