Hierarch

You ask me for a bout
I graciously oblige
So blithe and unconcerned
Dancing at the edge of your exertions
Gliding out of reach or
Interrupting your attack
Tossing off a little fencing humor—counter attack with squirm
Feint and run away
Embarrassingly simple lunge and touch
5-1
Salute, and bout

We find each other on the strip
An even match
We dally, butterfly and vamp
Exerting all our wiles
I draw on everything I know of you to
Put one over
Game your quirks and foibles
Sometimes we end 5-4, sometimes 4-5
If I prevail, I know without a doubt that
You’ll adapt—next time I’ll need to
Up my game

Humbly, I ask to referee
And cycle in
Even watching it’s a struggle
To parse your strategy, call your blinding moves
When I plug in I become a stumblebum, a clod
A rank initiate
But you—so blithe and unconcerned
Dancing just beyond my lunge
Gliding out of reach
Interrupting my attack
A little fencing humor—now the joke’s on me
I barely score a touch

And so I backtrack to my first opponent
Reassure myself that
I can move
Can make the colored light go off
(More to my credit, to rehearse the moves that
I suspect might work some day, scaled up in
Speed and execution)

We cycle through the salle
A fencing reel of couples swapping partners
And frustrations
Egos waxed, and waning
Eclipsing and eclipsed
Tutoring and schooled
(And smarting from the lesson)

Pardon, may I add you to my dance card for the night?