couples dancing,
arm in arm, hand in hand,
at the Birthday Ball.
My father puts on his best overalls,
I wear my Sunday dress,
the one with the white collar,
and we walk to town
to the Legion Hall
and join the dance. Our feet flying,
me and my father,
on the wooden floor whirling
to Arley Wanderdale and the Black Mesa Boys.
Till ten,
when Arley stands up from the piano,
to announce we raised thirty-three dollars
for infantile paralysis,
a little better than last year.
And I remember last year,
when Ma was alive and we were
crazy excited about the baby coming.
And I played at this same party for Franklin D.
Roosevelt
and Arley.
Tonight, for a little while
in the bright hall folks were almost free,
almost free of dust,
almost free of debt,
almost free of fields of withered wheat.
Most of the night I think I smiled.
And twice my father laughed.
Imagine.
January 1935