The old woman said.

“I could have been a

professional dancer you know.”

Every body laughed;

she was very old and senile.

For me it was tragic sad.

A tear squeezed from my eye

but no one saw; in the movies.

 

It was tragic sad,

it is always sad;

when someone realizes

that life is nearly over

and they have done so few

of those things that they

may have been capable of.

Regrets, not for things done,

perhaps rashly

but for those things left undone.

The horror of the worlds

complete indifference to

our ever having been here,

a tragic soul in anguish.

 

And so the movie played on.

Her last gesture, one of

brave love covered by brevity.

Standing straight, taut!

 

She will not see him, again,

the image of her dead daughter,

now lost.

Her world crumbles but not her love.

Her last spoken words.

“I could have been a

professional dancer, you know !”

 
 

David Garlick, Sidney, December, 2000