Down the hall the davenport looms
toward her, an uncharted shoal.
One thing's needed and he's not it —

arm a plank she's forced to walk,
hand a rudder to push her into shallows
where a woman depends from a partner's arm,

where her right foot is his left.
But the only feet are hers.
She swerves the medio corte

between bed and bureau, inches missed.
She would not insist, "Let's try that step again."
Nor sense the current change, the rhythm

subtly alter, nor would she align her sights
with the shoulder of Gibraltar.  In the mirror
her form waves back, a little older:

her nightgown loose, a cotton sail, her face
scrubbed clean and plain as salt.
She considers the wreck of the narcissists

lost on some isle of form; shoots
the rapids down the stairs to turn
the Latin up and tango on the lawn.