those quiet nights

In the secular night you wander around

alone in your house. It's two thirty.

Everyone has deserted you,

or this is your story;

you remember it from being sixteen,

when the others were out somewhere,

having a good time,

or so you suspected,

and you had to baby-sit.

You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream

and filled up the glass with grape juice

and ginger ale, and put on Glenn Miller

with his big-band sound,

and lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up the chimney,

and cried for a while because you were not dancing,

and then danced, by yourself,

your mouth circled with purple.

-margaret atwood