POETRY FRIDAY: The Summer I Was Sixteen

The summer I was sixteen occurred in the year 1963. My good friends and I hung out at a beach in Marblehead, Massachusetts, every sunny day we could. We swam, sunbathed, played kitty whist, and listened to rock and roll music on our transistor radios. Bikinis weren't quite the fashion yet. Most of us wore one-piece bathing suits. That was a l-o-o-o-n-n-n-g time ago. I still remember those carefree days fondly...when we girls had mostly boys on our minds. I still hang out with many of those same friends today. In fact, I married my high school sweetheart!

Here's a poem for a summer day...and memories of youth.

The Summer I Was Sixteen
by Geraldine Connolly

The turquoise pool rose up to meet us,
its slide a silver afterthought down which
we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.
We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.

Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted
up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool
lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,
we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete,

danced to the low beat of "Duke of Earl".


You can read the rest of the poem here at Poetry 180.

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At Wild Rose Reader, I have two poems entitled Bed in Summer--one written by Robert Louis Stevenson and an original poem I wrote many years ago.