Drinking in my local

last dullday afternoon

soft drizzle outside

nothing much happening

usual 21st c. sense of ennui

 

when the door burst open

and a woman danced in

spinning wheeling pirouetting 

across the floor 

up on to a table

scattering drinkers before her

 

eyes flashing devilment and untamed fire

the shimmer of her dress was scarlet, 

silver, purple, maybe green -

when we talked about it later 

none of us agreed -

and as the trumpets kicked in

with something latin 

I paused, mouth open

pint in hand.

Since when had we had a brass section

in the toilets?

What did this mean?

 

Then I saw the infant at her breast

and I understood

this was what Nigel 

had been rambling on about

the old soak.

 

Ostentatious? By god, he wasn’t joking.

 

As the music swelled to a crescendo

she sprang onto the bar

stamping her heels the length of it,

one arm held aloft, defiant

head thrown back in a piercing banshee scream

a howling wail that lifted the hair on my neck

and as the child suckled, contented,

and fireworks burst along the line of optics

and confetti cannon spewed

a blizzard of paper

into the room

 

I was on my feet 

with all the others

whooping cheering punching the air

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! HELL YEAH!!

 

That night 

I dreamed of gurgling babies

fat as Buddhas

and woke smiling.