A Sunday night, Nineteen Forty. <br />Holy - unholy congregate <br />at the four ways, <br />Just to foot the night, <br />to reel and play and flirt. <br /> <br />Midges feast on freckled arms <br />and heaving breasts, <br />Tasting, in warm blood, <br />Summer's ripening. <br /> <br />Girls dance with girls - for the while, <br />until portered men saunter that length <br />elbowing in on the sweet, sweet air. <br /> <br />Melodeon, mouth organ, <br />dry slap of hands, <br />soft duststep footfalls <br />syncopate the tangled pairs <br />down the bush-green hours <br />till past the blowsy midnight. <br /> <br />Some slip the reels, <br />heat and cool <br />in fragrant grass, <br />Nineteen Forty frank and free. <br /> <br />Only war and work and <br />pale babies with polio, <br />will trip these dancing girls, <br />these bright boys of Summer <br />who come and go on music, <br />and the night, <br />and footing <br />at the Crossroads.<br /><br />James Mills<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/crossroads-2/
