sometimes i forget
how much i love to dance.
how i’ll stand right up against
a stack of speakers taller than me
and let the vibrations
tear through my body, happily.
sometimes i forget
i’m not just going barefoot
on gravel kind of tough.
i’m sliding out of my heels

on the street in east St. Louis
and sitting down
for a curbside cigarette
kind of tough too.  
i’m a country mouse
whose seen The Cramps.
and i can’t resist a rousing call
for cornfed dames.
even when it means
a Tuesday night in town.