The Peculiar Grace of Men – August 2018

From Wild Love, 1996, by Nancy Wood (unpublished)

 

He never dances, except with me, in

a swirl of love and half-remembered music

that pours from his lips as he turns me

toward him like a bird. His is not a dancer’s body,

but that of a man accustomed to living life

in the raw. He is clumsy on his feet and cannot

keep rhythm to the simplest tune. The peculiar grace

of men in love saves them from awkwardness,

especially when women don’t notice

the way such creatures

trample on their feet.