Susan LaFortune’s work indulges us with gritty moments of everyday life and often illuminates them with traces of love and beauty. Her first chapbook, Talking in my Sleep, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2013 and was nominated for a pushcart prize. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various publications including Muddy River Poetry Review and Ibbetson Street Magazine. She is an annual supporter of the Newburyport Literary Festival, Poets & Writers Magazine, and is associated with several poetry organizations in New England. She is a member of Somerville’s Bagel Bards.

Long Playing Microgroove

Susan LaFortune

I was conceived on the night
they danced, the last of the
summer parties, the last substance
of their love.

I like to imagine the way
he held her close in that moment,
and all of the nights before, after
they came home, still dancing.

She must have been beautiful
with her summer glow
In her dress with matching shoes
and purse,

wearing just a dab of perfume
behind her ears, that tender
part on her wrist where his lips
may have kissed her.

She would have worn her hair
In pink curlers all day
and maybe she still smoked then
a dusty pink lipstick mark
on her cigarette

He would have worn his suit
even in the late summer
his cologne lingering in the air
from room to room at the party

With a drink in his hand,
they would laugh together,
a swirl of ice and liquor
Paddy’s Irish Whisky, while
she sipped slowly on her water

I imagined they danced the same way
they did at their wedding
I watched once from an old roll of film
Felt, Love in the air, love growing
-in places, we will never know for sure.

After the dancing, after the party
She lies in bed and remembers
his hands, the music
the way he guides her
the first time they danced
the first time for any of this

He lies beside her,
feeling more empty than before
for reasons he cannot know
the sun will be rising soon
and all of this, the love, the waltz
will be over.

I have taken from them, all their love
all the music, I am a beautiful dancer.
There is nothing left for them to feel as they watch
me twirl and remember how they
use to love the dance, the music, that tender
place on her wrist, the morning after
when they were still moving together in time. 

— Susan  LaFortune

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