Hot mango flush.
Ladies with ice cream hair –
Gyroscopic pink neon beams –
Everybody’s happy about something.
The crowd moves like a flock of starlings: they
switch direction as one.
Jive on the jukebox – Jack and Joker
split the night air with whoop and holler.
Faint aroma – wood smoke, old fish,
diesel harbour, roadside mongrel,
painted man with buttons barely
holding, bursting belly bulging.
Doe-eyed ragamuffin mumbling –
Scolded for some vague infraction.
Stole a penny candy-coloured
sweetheart kiss down at the market.
Down at the market all the world
seems to simmer:
Hot mango flush.