Moviegoer

It was
the Kinema at Albert Park for matinées on Saturday:
Ma and Pa Kettle, The Three Stooges, Brigadoon.
Chips afterwards, a walk through empty streets,
the park with bowlers. Sometimes, boys circling
closer on bikes, skidding to expose themselves…
We ran, us girls, clutching the last of our chips;
once, after a Blue Heaven milkshake, I was sick.
Twice a week we frequented, my family and I,
the Empire — alias the Bughouse. In dusk light
we ambled down the hill, through lanes
dotted with bins to Coventry Street. It was
June and Van, Doris and Rock, Paul and Joanne…
In over-large dress, neat cardigan, white socks,
I hid in the Ladies' as Rita Hayworth danced
the Dance of the Seven Veils — one mortal sin
avoided; seven of them. It seemed an eternity,
waiting in there on crimson concrete, among
clammy smells, while the back-row girls came
to relieve themselves, fix make-up, gossip
about boys. They had beehive hairdos, waists
cinched by huge elastic bands, mascara-black.
Ken the usher's torch, searchlight of decency,
was no match for them, going the whole way,
somehow, in bucket seats, slipping and sliding
in the Brylcreem darkness…
I never saw that body
pretend to bare itself on screen, only the beheading
after: so many meanings given to the nakedness
of woman. But what did I know of that, then?
At interval, orange or sarsaparilla in fluted glasses —
elongated chalices waiting in rows on the counter.
Later, we made for home, past back gates
and broken fences, up the hill to where we'd sleep,
dream gaudily fearful dreams, under
the moonlit shadow of the Town Hall clocktower.