I Can’t Dance
I want to devil
with your dance
I said
my devil, my dance
she said
I wish I could dance
I said
I wish I could dance
like the devil
you can dance
she said
you can dance your little devil
dance, it’s ok
the devil lived
to curse my feet
I said
I can’t dance
your little devil
can dance
she said
you just bring him out
see if I’m right
what the devil
I said
and she said
you see
you see how he dances
make like your little devil
and dance
—
Glenn Ingersoll works for the public library in Berkeley, California. Videos of his poetry reading and interview series Clearly Meant can be found on the Berkeley Public Library YouTube channel. Ingersoll’s prose poem epic, Thousand, is available from bookshop.org and as an ebook from Smashwords. Autobiography of a Book is forthcoming from AC Books. He keeps two blogs, LoveSettlement and Dare I Read and in 2023 began a Substack newsletter Heart Demons. Poems have recently appeared in Thieving Magpie, Furious Gazelle, and Trash Panda.
