Navy YMCA, Norfolk, Virginia

by

Thomas Michael McDade

At the Navy YMCA
downtown Norfolk
there was a gymnasium
filled with bunk beds
like the place at Camp Barry
where you slept
your first boot camp night.
No free ride at the Navy Y.
Sleep was ninety-nine cents,
including a towel
and a bar of hotel ivory soap
without a wrapper.
There were no lockers.
Valuables and uniforms
were safe under mattresses.
Lifers said that was the way
sailors did their pressing
on the old ships.
Sunday morning there was
Bible study.
The girls who served coffee
and donuts free
supplied homemade cookies
Saturday nights
and danced like big sisters
except if payday was near
when they pulled an inch
closer to win a sailor
for Jesus from the Granby
Street girls who ignored
the Gideons at the Commodore
Maury, hung dress blues
gently in closets.

NEXT?
Why don't you look at To Antonio Gaudi
by: Alan C. Keimig
from: Auburn, WA, US

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