She has returned to the world, 
the doing do, 
the bugaboo, 
the doo-wop of design, 
while I’m still in that Bojangles love—
the dance in my heart tapping out a beat, 
my loins juiced up by our duet. 
Yeah, I’m hungry as I crack the eggs, 
swoosh them on the spattering olive oil, 
licking my lips with her tongue & groove consonance, 
my hips dipping in gypsy gyrations. 
Foolish love, oh foolish, foolish world! 
But please, tell me, is there another reason 
Bojangles danced? 

Marcus Elman

is a yoga and fitness therapist working mostly with the elder-sage population in Southern California. He is curious about energy, how things work and get repaired, and the idea of redemption. His poem “The Boulevards of Los Angeles” received an honorable mention in Beyond Baroque’s 2017 annual poetry prize and was published in the textbook Method & Mystery: A Research-Based Guide to Teaching Poetry (The Poetry Salon, 2019). “The Crossing” was shortlisted for the Into The Void Poetry Prize 2020. His poems have been published in Cultural Daily [see links below], and in three volumes of Sunbeams: The Joan Ramseyer Memorial Poetry Anthology (2018, 2019, and 2020). He is a graduate of American River College, UC Davis, and Pepperdine.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Marcus Elman: Two Poems in Cultural Daily (5 January 2023): “The Prosciutto Ambulance” and “The Offering”

⚡ The Boulevards of Los Angeles in Cultural Daily (26 September 2018)