To get past the door to the Top Rank

disco every Saturday afternoon

you needed a suit, so mine

was a lifeless grey, a cast-off,

with narrow lapels that even then

I knew had never been fashionable.

 

Once in, you were lost to darkness,

until your eyes adjusted,

bumping around the outer tables,

where you searched for mates

who talked big and smoked,

nursing Pepsi Colas.

 

In class we had learned

from Brother Vergilius, confused

and sheepish as we were,

about the risks involved in kissing,

how one thing might lead

to another, but somehow never did.

 

In the end the music got you

– Muscle Shoals, the Motor City –

making moves in a circle

next to a circle of girls.

Above it all the mirror ball

became your ruling planet.