your only man

The first time we’ve ever danced together

you were just seven weeks old and your mother and I

were having dinner in a restaurant in Ballindine.

Looking at the place from your buggie you were relaxed at first,

but then you started to scream like a little mad girl;

so I decided to take you up in my arms and go up and down

in the restaurant, when I realized that a Janis Joplin’s song was

hovering in the air. We started dancing quite automatically,

at the rhythm of “take another little piece of my heart, baby”.

You stopped your cry and looked at me perplexed, not knowing what to do;

you were amused and relaxed again, moving at our own pace,

still dancing, still taking pieces of my own heart and playing with them,

putting them in your mouth like the little yellow and orange mice

that if you squeeze them they make a funny noise you liked so much.