In Vienna all the gardens
have their benches round their borders
and the people sitting on them
ask no questions, follow orders.
So they come with their umbrellas
and parade along the pathways,
with their dainty feet on tarmac
and their heads towards the sunrays.
Just their dogs run wild and free,
unleashed gayly among flowers,
where they dance in ecstasy
and rejoice the absent showers.
Once when I was sitting there,
I imagined the paraders,
without clothes and dancing naked
just as if they were nude bathers.
When I closed my eyes just slightly,
I could see their arms all linking
as they swayed and pranced together
without redfaced shameful thinking.
As I sat upon my bench,
with this bright-eyed wondrous thought,
I knew that this would not happen
for we all do what we're taught.