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John Stammers

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Saturday night amnesia

There we are in the Babycham spotlight, the pure glam
of the circular white dancefloor (and everything black
that is not dancefloor). Your spandex boob tube clings
                                                                                 to you
like a fretful marmoset does to its mother in the jungle.

We do a starburst, a double hip thrust, your back to mine,
                                                                                     mine
to yours, one arm straight up, heads down. This is the last
                                                                                  word
in terpsichore and the first word in what dates so badly
it makes a comeback before I even know it’s gone. It went

like the Saturday night when, in your parents’ flat that
overlooked the zoo, we peer out the slide-aside window,
a grey smear blears up over the hoots of the gibbons
and the scowls of the howler monkeys, and is Sunday,
as we look, my white suit bled with Lambrusco,
your cream crimplene skirt specked with sputum.

 

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