The lights out, ages gone, on old dancefloors,
The clubs we lost, their names forgot by most,
Yet every echo ~ knuckles on a door ~
Returns the old four/four, that faithful ghost.
Then fourteen lines of rhyme are keeping time
Kicks and hats and claps that will not slumber.
With clicking clocks, with rain’s tin-window chime,
Each tick, each tap, beats out: no lonely number.
And now, by lamplight umber, we recall
and wake the pattern in these fresh machines.
And specks of light flung by the glitterball
Dance round again in hisses and sixteens.
Let no dark thought the dancing soul encumber,
Now nevermore alone - no lonely number.
