Summer Girls
J.T. Ledbetter
Summer girls flit like moths
on the Courthouse lawn,
and boys in town stand around,
their hands in pockets, hats pulled low.
Summer girls dance all night
on the platform there, hardwood,
old, marks from shoes, smooth.
Older folks watch from Bridey’s
Café across the street,
and talk of when they danced
beneath the maples there,
and who they did or did not kiss.
In winter light they wait for summer,
lasting on memories, waiting.
But the Courthouse is ice
and the maples, bare, their memories
cold as the fire where they rock,
remembering who they did or did not kiss,
where the winter grasses hiss and hiss.
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