The Dance of Ararat

After W C Williams

If my wife is snoring as softly as a musk-ox,

the child purring in the cot, and a distant hum

declares the taxis and rain have nearly stopped

and my empties are strewn like a planetarium

in the aquatic light of my screensaver, as I rise

and feel the deck shift under the living room

but catch myself in an arabesque, and the line

of muscle in my forearm seems a thing of glory

and behold, my hard calves, buttocks and thighs

and sense the thousands in the darkness, more,

a disco of silent limbs around me and each one

heaving their breaths, ecstatic, owning the floor

then who is to say I am less than Noah, captain

waiting for the tide to breach against the top

of Ararat, one hand steady on the klaxon?