Dyke Bar Tango

Trail scent of leather, drawn like moth by 
  incense   –     fag-ends     aftershave    sweet sweat   –
to the bar hunched over its own boots at the end of the alley.        
Crooked finger of neon     beckons

through crack time-worn door.      Unzip 
its train-track grin     cross the threshold     holding nothing 
but bunched fists       knuckles broken around decades 
               swollen      split with hope.                       Inside, 
shadows spill,
    sharp as the undercuts of dancing dykes that strike 
a rhythm against panelled walls.     God is dancing for all her refracted selves.  
  I duck beneath the din,    wallow          in dim undercurrent, 
where shaved heads sway in time with the    open / close    shuck of the door,
each   entry / exit   a portal to the possibility of predator. 

We herd together,    a sweat slickened gleam 
of sapphic sirens      wolfish bois     a flutter of femmes
on the sticky tread of dancefloor.             It is my hands

which first pick up the beat.          Time metronomes on beyond
the safety of pop tunes blasted out in polished bars, 
racing into discordant delight, I feel my hips give in       open
to prospects.

There is a tune I cannot hear, 
even as my boot stomps one triumphant sole
onto the path that ignores north, ignores shelter, 
instead, guns full-throttle tango for home.