Whitney Houston, Your Vanilla Perfume, and a Love That's Electric and New |
Matthew Fowler
We’re at the third club of the night—
this one has a proper dance floor
with checkerboard tiles and technicolor lights.
Whitney croons over the speakers
“I wanna dance with somebody….”
I’ve been trying to find the courage to make my move all night.
So I gulp down the flames of my whiskey sour,
take your hands and guide them to my waist.
Your eyes widen in surprise and then—
you pull me in even closer.
My heart races in my ears.
You bite down on your lower lip,
and I’m jealous of your teeth.
As I twirl you around, you throw your head back laughing,
pearlescent smile glowing purple under the blacklight,
that pink dress outlining the sloping contours of your body
and I let my hands explore all the warm new shapes of you.
I pull you even closer, put my lips to your ear,
savor the honey-vanilla scent of your perfume,
breathlessly confessing all the things we could do.
In the morning, I wear your sweater home.
In the morning, I am not the same person I was when I left my dorm.
In the morning, it comes back in flickers and fragments in my mind—
Your face under the glow of those disco lights.
Hands tangled in soft hair, under dresses, under sheets.
I inhale the melted sugar scent of you on my sweater,
giddy and aglow with the euphoria of new beginnings
and possibilities as infinite
as the refracted shimmers
of that dance club disco ball.
