What in heaven’s name is strange
about a grandmother dancing nude?
I’ll bet lots of grandmothers do it.
—Sally Rand at seventy-one
Night is when the grannies dance,
Late toward dawn when juniors sleep.
Quietude and greys enhance
A nude grandmother’s dip and sweep.
In heaven’s name and heaven’s eyes,
Nothing’s strange; what would surprise
Us here where none see Grandma bare
Is taken on its merits there.
Saints beam out from glowing bushes,
Cherubs twitch congenial tushes,
Hermits turn from festive fasts
To view the old ecdysiasts.
Naked as the day, they’re borne
Up through negligees of cloud.
How life’s made you isn’t porn.
They’ve transcended “well endowed.”
Bobbly dancers, or thin as fans,
No body stemmed or globed the same.
Every mother’s mother sans
Stays, stockings, station, shame.
How transported Larchmont’s Mrs.
R. Coles Trowbridge, Sr., is! Is
There a soul back home who’d know her?
Grannies samba, wheel and soar,
Spin, unwind, then gather, knitting
In the altogether fitting
Gram finale curtain: rich
In folds without a single stitch.
One more time! The Granny Ramble!
Stirred-up unborn lambkins gambol!
Wide-eyed stars neglect their twinkles!
Grannies show them all some wrinkles!
Then they slide down pearly ramps
Back to unsuspecting Cramps
Or (if he’s gone, he’s up there crying
“Encore!”) one more hour of lying
Solo. Then … get up, get clad,
Get peevish, restless, rattled, harassed.
“Grandma,” people say, “looks sad.”
She’s itching to be hoofing bare-assed.