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The
Dance
by
Elizabeth Zelvin
God, let this be a good day. The
sun is shining. I will help bring in the harvest. Friends and strangers join
us, first to work and then to dance and sing. Tonight we will celebrate the
harvest. The sun and the harvest, work and friends and music ought to be
enough. Is it wrong to long for more? Is it too much to want someone to love?
God, let this day be special. Let tonight be different from all other nights.
Is it too much to ask?
Now it is night. The sky is
black. The stars are out. I am dancing with a man I have just met. I like the sparkle
in his eyes and the grip of his hand as we circle in the dance. His hand is big
and rough, the hand of someone who is not afraid of work. His clasp is firm and
gentle, as if my smaller hand is precious, like a child's. I feel warm and
safe. The floor is packed. Others all around us have given themselves to the
dance, the joyful music. We laugh, for no particular reason.
He says, "Your dress is
pretty."
The dress is new. I bought it for
the dance. I like his smile.
Maybe he will be the one.
Shots ring out. The man I danced
with vanishes. I hear screaming all around me. I cannot speak or move. I have
blood spatters on my dress. Blood spatters on my dress.
Around me all is dark. I am dying.
I am dying.
How can I go to meet my God with
blood spatters on my dress?
Elizabeth Zelvin writes the Bruce Kohler Mysteries and the
Mendoza Family Saga. Her stories appear in Ellery Queen's Mystery
Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and Black Cat
Mystery Magazine, as well as Yellow Mama.
Henry Stanton's fiction, poetry
and paintings appear in 2River, The A3
Review, Avatar, The Baltimore City Paper, The Baltimore Sun Magazine,
High Shelf Press, Kestrel, North of Oxford, Outlaw Poetry,
PCC Inscape, Pindeldyboz, Rusty Truck, Salt & Syntax, SmokeLong
Quarterly, The William and Mary Review, Word Riot, The Write
Launch, and Yellow Mama, among other publications. His poetry was selected for the
A3 Review Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the Eyewear
9th Fortnight Prize for Poetry. His fiction received an Honorable Mention
acceptance for the Salt & Syntax Fiction Contest and was selected as a finalist
for the Pen 2 Paper Annual Writing Contest. A selection of Henry Stanton's paintings
are currently on show at Atwater's Catonsville and can be viewed at the following website www.brightportfal.com. A selection of Henry Stanton’s published fiction
and poetry can be located for reading in the library at www.brightportfal.com. Henry
Stanton is the Founding & Managing Editor of The Raw Art Review—www.therawartreview.com.
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