Swing, Swing

After the war ended,
they celebrated here
for three days straight.

Sole prints and heel pinpoints
still mark the floor in wild
constellations of jazz and swing.

That night, seventy years later,
watching a moving mass of youth
dance to drum and bass, I saw it,

somewhere in the midst
of it all. The flash of wingtips,
the twirl of a petticoat,

like curtains closing on that
world of war when you danced
for love of life and nothing else.