You awaken, knowing you should go.
You’ll feel better if you go.
You’ll have fun if you go.

Fun exercise. An oxymoron.
Such a foreign concept it seems
impossible. Ridiculous.

But you get up. You go.
And as the ladies assemble on
Amy’s deck, as Amy hangs

Shelley’s speaker from a rung
of the open umbrella,
Motown rains down on you.

Your feet cannot help but start
to move, your little endorphins
beginning to dance

as Shelley leads you and the ladies
through exercises that test you
a bit, certainly strengthen you.

And though your little heart
has been blasted open with
fresh grief, moving and

Motown help begin to put
your pieces back together,
Shelley waving her arms in

gyrations that make you laugh,
though each of you has arrived
carrying something heavy.

Each one of you beginning
to fill with fresh light and air,
all of you dancing now to

Martha and the Vandellas,
if not in the street, then
on the deck this spring

morning, full of promise and
hope and—though you thought
it had abandoned you—

utter joy.

•••

You can watch Martha and the Vandellas perform “Dancing in the Streets” here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdvITn5cAVc

Martha Reeves, Betty Kelly and Rosalind Ashford were Martha and the Vandellas
(who are all still living). The song was written in 1964 by Marvin Gaye
(who played drums on the original recording), William “Mickey” Stevenson
and Ivy Jo Hunter.

•••