Joy!

My daddy always swore it was true,
and, I guess, a 14-year-old boy would notice.
In Montgomery, Alabama, on hearing the news on VJ Day
spontaneous dancing broke out in the streets.
After selling all his newspapers,
he spied three nude young women.

No mad Gorgons turning celebratory jitterbuggers to stone,
no matron Fates spinning yarn,
but flesh-and-blood, young American womanhood
full-bodied with finger waves,
celebrating in a downtown fountain
naked as the day they were born.

Forget your black & white memories.
This was in living color.
Our mothers and fathers were not,
as we were told, priggish wallflowers.
News flash: our generation did not invent sex,
let alone exuberant joy.

Imagine those years of war –
the letter, the knock on the door,
the news that flattens you like an A-bomb.
All finally over!

Blame it on joy.
Yes, joy!