First Nights

By Laurinda Lind
 
       
       
It wasn’t hard to thrill us at fourteen,
fifteen, just open up the gym,
lower the lights, get a bad band
 
to play. These same floors we walked
all day but now that someone said so,
it was a dance. We could dance,
 
we could be danced, we might
choose or be chosen, shape our own
hands and feet to shout what
 
was too hard to say in the day.
We were accepted for a dollar
or for free into a nation made
 
new after dark, where we were not
yet tainted by the bad things that come
once you finally get what you want.