“when you get the chance / you are the dancing queen / young and sweet / only seventeen”

For Poetry Monday:

The Beauty Lover, Claire Bu Zard

The round, pink, laughing girl bathes,
And the thin, grey, silent girl watches.
…. And afterwards,
When the bather dries herself,
And puts powder under her arms,
And lies down, like a sleepy flower,—
The grey girl catches her around the hips, violently,
And kisses her:
Surprised, the pink girl draws away;
And the grey girl—
(Poor little restless lover of beauty)—
Apologizes
And is ashamed.


First published in 1919 in The Pagan Magazine.

—L.

Subject quote from Dancing Queen, ABBA.