In high school, I went to sock hops because there was nothing
else to do on those nights and everybody attended, not cool
if you didn’t, especially in the eyes of the girl you had
your heart set on way back in the days when girls lined up
on one side of the cafeteria and boys on the other, the teacher
who supervised the evening keeping the two a proper distance
apart during slow dances, the only ones I’d say yes to any
girl who asked me. I had no rhythm for the fast ones, couldn’t
shake my body in a cool way or swivel my hips, didn’t know
what to do with my arms. But my freshly washed jeans hanging
on the line in the wind have now mastered those moves,
each leg doing its own thing as if the other doesn’t exist.
That’s what I needed long ago, and a long-sleeved cotton shirt
out there, too, to show me how to rock-and-roll my arms.
