by Matt Morgan-Rawes

Created on: December 27, 2008

Couples dancing those same old dances

Uniform and regimented, no foot out of place

Keeping to rhythm, in orderly lines

Burning time and filling blank space

He holds her hips and gives them a squeeze

Whilst she wraps her arms round his neck

They look so perfect, cinematic, pristine

They look up, still moving, a deft little peck

On each others' lips, that gets a silent applause

Gazes of admiration, looks free of scorn

She smiles at his direction, but she looks at the wall

He looks down at her crotch, aroused but forlorn

He imagines her genitals, but his view is obscured

By the unsightly bump that protrudes from her dress

The crowd do not notice, they see as they wish

A young boy and a young girl in a young lovers' bliss

So physically close, but emotionally so far

Blink, look again, see what you missed

She hangs onto him like a bird on a bough

In a tempest that blows an icy chill

That chases all innocent creatures to shelter

But blows against the bare bough, who remains perfectly still

She sinks her claws into sturdy branches

Hauled herself up from mediocrity on the ground

Holding on only to get an enhanced view

Of what she still wants; not of what she's found

He has a smile etched on his face

In a state of permanence; his expression his curse

He cannot afford to move a mere inch

His lips are thin, tight and pursed

For if only they knew of the truth

Of how his roots sustain but confine

Kept sturdy alive and yet dash his spirit

One eats the tuna, but must swallow the brine.

"Aren't they so lovely" says a stately woman

To nobody in particular, but announced to all ears

"Like us in our youth" she glances to her husband

Who stopped listening for weeks, months years

"Like us in our youth" she repeats with clenched teeth

A nervous laugh as she scans her soulless peers

And another turn of her head as she scans a face

That looks decidedly blank, and confirms her fears.

"Do you remember when we sat in Hyde Park,

When we were young, it was just after the war

We fed the ducks, you bought me an ice cream..."

She trailed off briefly as she thought of more

Of the details of a now significant day

Which for the purposes of the occasion, it was not,

But was now the epitome of romance, at the soiree

"We went to the theatre and saw Macbeth,

You wore a waistcoat, I wore my dress

Royal blue ribbons trailed off my slender waist"

She stopped to see if her story had impressed

But the crowd were still very much entranced

By the perfect couple, "Oh how they dance!"

Exclaimed one woman near by

Whose eyes shone brighter than the stars in the

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