Summer's Women

It is the season of seductiveness
And unsolicited strip tease;
The Exhibitionism of the pony tail
In the magic make-up of young girls
Rushing into womanhood -
Making mothers shop for halter tops;
Searching glamour magazines meticulously
For any spell or wizardy
To gentle daylight on their faces...
And all the untouched stripes
Where the sun itself went blind
While staring like a voyeur caught
Before he makes his mark,
Beckons to us under lampposts
And in the palest moonlight
Like a bride's surprise to her groom
On their wedding night...
In the negligee between the arcade and the curb
The darkest Brooklyn eyes fade to amber
As the young girls raise their brows
And tilt their heads as if to dance,
While their mothers are asleep;
Grasping at their daughter's dreams.

Ken Siegelman, Brooklyn Poet Laureate