Dancing Toward Bethlehem

Dancing Toward Bethlehem

-Billy Collins

If there is only enough time in the final

minutes of the twentieth century for one last dance

I would like to be dancing it slowly with you,
say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel.

.

My palm would press into the small of your back

as the past hundred years collapsed into a pile

of mirrors or buttons or frivolous shoes,
just as the floor of the ninteenth century gave way

and disappeared in a red cloud of brick dust.

.

There will be no time to order another drink

or worry about what was never said,
not with the orchestra sliding into the sea

and all our attention devoted to humming

whatever it was they were playing.