Dancing in and out of jail with Twyla Tharp

It was 1985, closing in on Happy Hour

and the city had just won the World Series. 

I should say, the rest of the city. 

I had just come out of a make-shift, garage-style opium den 

where me and my friend Goldblatt had gone deeply

into weed and the wonders of multiple bottles popped. 

I drove, in this elevated Christmas Eve exuberance, 

straight (and conveniently, for the police) into a trap

where I was politely, but pointedly, asked to walk a line. 

I did that (politely, wanderingly); the cheerful police began 

to laugh, jingling cuffs, and the clearly-cultured police woman 

said that I moved like something right out of Twyla Tharp. 

Well, I said, we’re all in good moods here, the baseball 

team won, now we’re discussing modern dance, surely 

you’ll let me drive on home, I’m really ok. They didn’t like that. 

Someone jingled cuffs on me, I was jerked in a car

driven then walked to a cell, that night was not on the list 

of memories effervescent, just gray and fluorescent. 

BUT. When I got out, back to whatever my house was, 

I looked up the Twyla Tharp performances to see, 

and twenty-five years later, I stopped drinking for keeps. 

And now, years later, one way or another, I am dancing!