On grinding at sixteen

Pippa and me, her three years younger
and still more accustomed to vodka,
wandering a field full of tents,
glow sticks and bands
you'd sort-of heard of
and didn't feel like sweating for.

That summer I wore the right trainers,
impressed my cousins by being older,
thought puns on heroine/heroin were amazing
and allowed the auntie who cried
at Granny's funeral like everyone else
but eschewed sober flats for black cowboy boots
to get us smashed and giddy
then free us like doves at a wedding
to bumble into dancing
with two local picker-ups
to unch-unch trance. Then their heat
pressed against us. Not so much
like the scene in "Dirty Dancing"
with the steamy club full of boneless, seamless
bodies glued and squirming to a sleazed-up Hollies number.
More like a hug.

Later, after they'd asked us
back to their tent, I grabbed the hand
of the flopping Pippa, whipped off
my mud-sodden trainers and we ran
squelching across the site, not stopping
until by chance my auntie -
sort of worried -
stood before us.
She proffered the bottle in relief.

That summer, myths crashed like duellist dragonflies.
Number one: that booze always tasted
like booze - bitter and stale.
Two and the second of many: that erections did not stand
perpendicular to the body
like who-goes-there swords.
All this
in one of the mushroom patch of mock-festivals
sprung for the eclipse, to snag
those who didn't want to share rocks
with the hippies and bask
in the marvel of a thumbprint
over the sun.