Just Fine by Clemence Chinyani

A lady,

A rarity these days,Like a dodo,

Asked me one day,
Which turned out to be fine,
If I was ok
Then she began to leave.

In response to her request,
I said hold on,
Then I began to lay out the basis,
For my saying that I was fine.

Said I,
Holding all things constant,
Freezing everything in time,
Bridling even the wildest gale,
I was fine.
Then she did one thing,
She beamed and said excitedly,
Ceteris Paribus!

We locked arms,
And danced round and round,
In the middle of the street,
Sounds strange now that I am writing about it,
But we did a happy little jig,
And the sun was almost dropping,
Into the pocket of the earth where it was carried,
To the next day.

So,
We did this little happy jig,
That never existed anywhere else,
Till that moment we met,
In other words,
We invented it in our happy moment,
And forgot about it after,
Now it only exists,
In this piece of poetry.

Then we stopped dancing abruptly,
Just as we had started,
Laughed awkwardly and agreed that,
That was a very odd moment,
And we decided that we go our separate ways,
Then she began to leave.

I called out after her trailing her,
STOP!
She did,
And I said that I could not,
Just let her go away,
Before my madness went away,
So I decided to remind her,
That holding all things constant,
Taming even the wildest cat,
I was just but fine.

Ceteris Paribus!

And the cycle repeated itself again,
The happy jig with arms locked,
And I said to her,
‘Your Latin is good’,
And she said,
‘Give the dead language a chance’,
I agreed and she also said,
‘If all people ceased being so gloomy,
And devoted their time and effort to find good art,
Then they would be healed of their mental ailment’,
I agreed and she went on,
To God belongs worship.

‘Ceteris Paribus’!
I yelled, 
Not knowing exactly why the switch of roles,
So again we locked arms and danced,
This time backwards,
Backwards as in rewinding the whole experience,
Then I let her go,
In fact she slid out of my lock,
And I did out of hers,
And the wind carried us away,
I watched her polka dots walk away,
Suddenly she was gone,
And I was left holding jumbled words,
That I knitted together on paper with a pen.