Hot mango flush. 

Ladies with ice cream hair - 

Gyroscopic pink neon beams - 

Everybody's happy about something. 

The crowd moves like a flock of startings: they 

switch direction as one. 

Jive on the jukebox - Jack and Joker 

split the night air with whoop and holler. 

Faint aroma - wood smoke, old fish, 

diesel harbour, roadside mongrel, 

painted man with buttons barely 

holding, bursting belly bulging. 

Doe-eyed ragamuffin mumbling - 

Scolded for some vague infraction. 

Stole a penny candy-coloured 

sweetheart kiss down at the market. 

Down at the market all the world 

seems to simmer: 

Hot mango flush.