How did the sand feel
On a six-year-old’s tender feet?
Burning hot
So hot it felt cold
Like playing in snow on an icy day
Running into the Atlantic Ocean
Waves slapping high
Jelly fish floating, flashing stingers
Undertow tripping unsteady legs
More danger than the average Nintendo game
My future sons would one day play
Susan, my age, also Gypsy
Dancing on pieces of driftwood
Allowed to wear a diklo tied behind her head
Romani-fashion
Unlike me because no one to know
We were now A-S-S-imilated
Americans, not Gypsies
With our pale skin and
Philly accents sounding okay
Atlantic City before casinos
When PC didn’t smack us down
In our unsanitized world
Like the Steel Pier Diving Horse
Yes, insane to make a horse dive
From 60 feet in the air
Into a kiddie pool
But with all the complaints
I never hear a word about the
Virgin Sacrifice
The Beautiful Rider
On the horse’s back also at risk
Ouch, if he landed on her today
Grandma waking us kids late at night
To walk the Boards, ride the carousel
And head for Mammy’s restaurant
Dipping cinnamon donuts into black coffee
Seminal moments of my caffeine and sugar addictions
Traced back to those wonderful days
Glimpsing grunting couples under the Boardwalk
A mere ten years before I, too,
Would be half-heartedly
Pushing away young men’s hands that felt so good
Saying, “No, I’m a virgin”
Do young women still say that? Do they do that?
Or did we early 1970’s feminists bestow our gift to them
By raising the consciousness of others to know
That women are sexual too
We are allowed to be sexual without being labeled
As “tramps” if we say yes
Or “lezzies” if we say no
Our gift of equal access to birth control
Is once again threatened in my lifetime
Will the young do that dance of fighting the hormones again?
Or just keep popping out babies
Into a world that is fast losing resources to care for
Seven billion souls?
The Drifters romanticized being under the boardwalk
But it was an undocumented struggle
To not be shamed in “the family way”
Yes, the sand was burning hot
We all burned those middle decades:
Music, war, cities destined for destruction
But through the intense heat
I can still smell the salt in the air
And the cooling grey water of the Atlantic
To soothe the toes and soles and souls
From a time so far away…
© 2014 ViataMaja, Laminas
