The Ballet – Joe Couture

May 26, 2026

Beneath a balding head the shape of an egg,
with cochlear implants wired on both sides,
Dee has two kindly, crossed eyes, behind
convex lenses in a thick black frame
resting on a Roman man’s nose
with a thin, unkempt mustache below
and a sloth’s smile that never leaves his face.

He’s got the sad, slumped shoulders
of a comic strip’s elderly caricature
but he’s only thirty-three. When he speaks,
his speech is wordless sound that honks
like geese. Regardless, the bartenders know
when he says, “Keith’s” and “please.”

His stepdad—a regular who, at sixty,
would puff his chest, swagger, pick barfights—
introduced him to the place after
his mother passed away. He shows up alone
since the stepdad OD’d. Mostly,
he arrives on karaoke night,
where he’s the sole cheerer of every set.

On this night, for the first time, he’s dancing.
His duck-feet circle serrated steps,
his hands glide low, his dance partner’s smiling
flaunting black tartar, as she’s grinding
the erection that pokes in Dee’s sweatpants.
On the sidelines, her friends are laughing
hands over mouths to keep Bud Light from spurting.

For several minutes, these sixty-somethings
stay laugh-locked in stools by the pool table
too entertained to break for toilet-tank cocaine
in the damp, piss-smelling bathroom.
Meanwhile, the old dancer felt flattered,
despite her grandstanding. When it was over,
they hopped down and gave Dee a standing ovation.

He left with them that night, in a taxicab, stumbling.
It was the last time any of us saw him.