The Haunting.... By Alan Shapiro

It may not be
the ghostly ballet
of our avoidance.s
that they’ll remember,
nor the long sulks
of those last months,
nor the voices
chilly with all
the anger we
were careful mostly
not to show
in front of them,
nor anything
at all that made...
our choice to live
apart seem to us...
both not only
unavoidable...

but good,but just.

No,what I think
will haunt them is
precisely what...
we’ve chosen to
forget: those too...
infrequent(though
even toward
the end still
possible) moments
when,the children
upstairs,the dinner...
cooking,one of us
would all at once...
start humming an old
tune and we’d dance,
as if we did
so always,in
a swoon of gliding...
all through the house,
across the kitchen,

down the hall
and back,we’d sway
together,we’d twirl,
we’d dip and cha
cha and the children...
would hear us and
be helpless not...
to come running
down to burrow
in between us,
into the center
of the dance that now,
I think,will haunt them
for the very joy
itself,for joy
that was for them,
for all of us
together,something....
better than joy,
and yet for you
and me,ourselves,
alone,apart,
still not enough...