Party Girls Poem by Jean Bernard Parr

A cluster of red and rising balloons
they come round with stickers
miss me out, me in red and my bike
against the sea wall
they are lucky with the weather
everyone agrees
we are lucky with the weather
I get a sticker from a thin man
with a grey beard who is rationing
stickers to the deserving poor
grey beards are in this year
and shiftily the cameraman is here
like a tradesman at the back door
looking for girls that are sparrow bright
and ranks form out of thin air
her in a blue suit, clipboarded
its you go there and there and there
she ordered, and the ranks formed anew
the candidates in the front row
spruced like first communion pure
the boys in suits and ties too big
rosettes on supersonic lapels, bloom
like grandmas funeral lipstick all set
for kissing babies and
out there on that disinterested sea
we can hope for floating voters
or defectors maybe

then there are the party girls
with pale unsunned and serious faces,
smiles so faint
hiding the all-knowing
they have high collars and
hawthorn sharp black heels
they know how it all works
the party girls underneath
the handshakes and glad double hands
that masks the broadsword grip
they know all the angles the
red lipsticked party girls
they spiral and wheel round the
dressed down man of the people
who beams like a lighthouse with
his deep Florida tan
the party girls do it
because they can, they can