Kevin Devine
Tapdance
You get back here
You do it slowly
Do it calm, now
Don't be so angry

I got something
I've been chasing
Every day since I started walking

It just sits there
In the distance
It always flirts with the tips of my fingers

You thought that
You could love it
Until it touched you
And now you just wanna stop it
Well I'm sorry
It's not likely
It was here when you got here
And it'll be here when you're not here no more

And then some days
I get lucky
I can focus and things are less shaky
And I scrape you
Off the pale moon
And I slip you
Into soft shoes

And you tapdance
To a jazz band
On a cruise ship
Near an island

And your hair's up
You wear a short dress
And a wide smile
You're movements are careless

It's a daydream
I keep having
To make the clocks move
While I'm working
Or a bad joke
I can't sit through
And I smile because I feel like I have to
But if you'd look under the table
You'd see I'm playing with my knife
I'm slicing stripes into my kneecaps
And I'm struggling just to come off polite
"We could be a snapshot framed and hung like a portrait"
What if that's true and I'm the only one who knows it?