Park Tango

Took a recovery ride through the park, closed to cars on Sundays. On the mountain bike, spinning furiously in a low gear, working the lactic acid out of my legs. Drifting along with rollerbladers, kids on training wheels, cocker spaniels chasing tennis balls. Cut over to the concourse between the Academy of Sciences and the De Young Museum, where the dreamily convulsive strains of vintage tango music wheezed from an underpowered PA. Under the bandshell, dozens of couples turned, slid, dipped, stopped, all with the utmost gravity. Korean couples, Irish couples, Hispanic couples...Russian men and Chinese women, blacks and Filipinos, young couples with 42 piercings between them, couples who had plainly just met, thrown together by the tango. Astor Piazzola and his bandoneon in fierce mono. The halting scrape of shoes on a wooden stage.