Thanks Max I love these old reminiscences -takes me back -perhaps to delve
into my own cheers P

-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 12 November 2013 22:55
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: 'Glamour in Plaits, 1947'

       Glamour in Plaits, 1947

For several nights I've gathered 
words for these two, the first
girls to fascinate me

when I was turning ten years old.
Anice -  small for her age,
plaits fair and short, neat ribbons;

eyes downcast, small feet,
tread light and...dainty.
We never spoke. For her

I joined the Busy Bees!
a trap to make us earnest
young Presbyterians.

(Much to my mother's surprise -
no churchgoer, she,
of any persuasion.)

A pageant's in rehearsal.
Each week the woman in charge,
impractical, unused to kids,

gets more exasperated.
Where are the kids, last week
flocking in who took the parts

they promised to learn?
They're just not reliable.
I resolve to be so -

Anice is there - most earnest,
silent - eyes on her script.
Had glances met, would

I have anything to say?
What trembled on my lips?
Nothing. Soon I was

another backslider 
from the Busy Bees,
as Mother always knew I'd be.

My focus shifts to Alison.
Her father runs the corner shop.
She has long blonde plaits,

untidy, almond eyes that flirt -
however, not with me.
Saturday afternoons,

at the station, I meet the train,
commandeer the dropped
parcel of Evening Posts,

lug them to the corner store,
to be rewarded with 
a milk-shake (caramel).

With luck I'd glimpse her -
the ten-year fascinating
Alison, her oval eyes,

dangerous smile,
and slim calves above
her white socks. Her mother

applies a purple disinfectant
to some raw patches
on those calves. Nothing

would have pleased me more
than touching Alison there
with healing fingers. 

None of this was to be let on 
to mother - or to sister,
this preferring other females.

Several nights, lately,
I've gathered phrases 
for these two, then lost them.

They were to make you see
two girls through a boy's eyes,
ignorant why girls might matter,

but hooked all the same.
The phrases faded in the dark.
What got noted lacks glamour,

but glamour's what they had. 
So started my lifetime's trouble 
with women and their mystery.