-waiting for my girl at the entrance to the Clambake Pavilion-

I waited for my girl at the ticket entrance
to the open-air Clambake Pavilion
"No Ticket No Chowder"

in the frantic amusement park
when she walked to the "Ladies Rooms"
to pee and freshen up.

I waited a respectful distance
from the tense line of women who had to go, the line
ready to snap into chaos at the slightest provocation

and although we had no intention of slipping inside
the thick, unsettling Clambake Pavilion without tickets

it's as good a place as any to meet-up.

waiting there, the monotone drone of slurping clam chowder broth,
(New England style, it should go without saying)
augmented by undertones of deep murmurings of ecstasy,
seemed to be the functional exercise of a well-oiled apparatus.

after a slow, painful passing of time
I spotted her negotiating the density

of the crowd milling around the grounds

none of whom, save the little kids,
seemed happy to be there and as she drew closer
I raised my arm, waving my hand in the universal
pantomime: “Hey! I'm over here”!

she spurted her way through the burning
mid afternoon crowd as if she'd been buttered,

her busy legs on the move beneath the strict,
flowering structure of crinoline, the inevitable
rhinestone-speckled sweater, breaking the rules

of commonplace with a sweltering performance.

the men palmed their cream-oiled haircuts as she passed,
they adjusted the waistbands and sucked their beer-bellies into them.
one guy walked into his wife knocking her to the ground
in front of the whizzing, screaming "Tilt-a-Whirl".

but outside the open-air Clambake Pavilion

where the sounds of spoons-full of clam chowder 
closed-in on two hundred slurping mouths,
my girl and me sat on a wooden bench
watching and listening to the people inside
and we did this for a long enough time before leaving
and we didn't even think of going in there.


 Lincoln Park, Westport, Mass. c.1959