The Revivification of Charles Josiah West, Age 82

Jeffrey Winter The Revivification of Charles Josiah West, Age 82

Look: I am dancing. I don’t remember the last time I danced, but remember how. I am dancing toward you. My skin is rough palimpsest with a thousand stories lurking forgotten underneath tonight’s. I keep folding at the joints, crinkling at the edges; I trip over my shins as the floor clears.

It’s coming easier now.

Listen: air whistles through the soft blue tubes twined up and down my limbs. With a choking, glottal sound the blood begins to move again. Each jounce of my narrow shoulders carries me closer to you. Each thrust of my hipbones sprinkles my path to you with rust. They will say I am too old, the way they say that you are fat. I say that you are ripe; I say that I am ready. Who will you believe?

This is what age can be: a suit half-full, shaking itself across a gleaming floor to the never-ending throb of music; a blunt blade yearning for the stroke of the whetstone. A shot of whiskey glows in my stomach, the liquid hand of an angel playing the puppeteer. I am more full of grace than I ever have been. I am more graceful than I ever will be.

See: the lights reflect off the floor like faint, cool coals. Watch: I strut across them for you. I am receiving signals from parts long presumed dead, from ghost towns where oil has been suddenly struck. I am a revived libido. I am a resurrected id. I am the holocaust that happens in the epilogue. Place your pretty hands on your thighs; remain seated and prepare yourself.

Listen: the music never stops. Look: I am dancing across the floor. See: I am coming. I am coming for you.