The Feast Of Busby Berkeley
Big holidays are often because of things
that weren’t the disaster you’d imagine—
often events you wouldn’t even notice
if you weren’t paying attention: lots of
oil, a state execution foiled, death taking
its unfixable thievery elsewhere. The old
friend released from the hospital, the
Aurora showing its dragon-green dance
to a solitary teacher driving the reservoir
causeway on her way to school just before
dawn, radio in her car untouched by any
solar storm. And this black and white
movie: ninety years old, three hundred
showgirls camped overnight in an arena-
sized rehearsal hall, learning a new routine,
each of them equipped with a negligee,
swimsuit, and waterproof makeup: every bit
as crazy a story as you getting to watch it
now and stop mourning the news. You did,
too, after clicking a single button thrice.
Later you stepped out on the porch into air
deep with frost and midnight, taken by a
hilarious delirium. Everything hushed, the
creek shuffling water. So. Why not believe?
*
Christine Potter’s poetry has been curated by Rattle, Kestrel, Third Wednesday, Thimble, Eclectica, The Midwest Quarterly, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily—and featured by ABC Radio News. She has work forthcoming in The McNeese Review. Her young adult novels, The Bean Books, are published by Evernight Teen, and her third full-length collection of poetry, Unforgetting, by Kelsay Books.
