What contribution do the adjectives make to the impact of the poem?
When I’m old, I’ll say the summer
they built the stadium. And I won’t mean
the council. I’ll be hugging the memory
of how, open to sun and the judgement
of passing eyes, builders lay
and melting on hot pavements,
the toast of Cardiff. Each lunchtime
Westgate Street, St. John’s, the Hayes
were lined with bodies; forget the jokes, these jeans were fuzz stretched tight
over peaches. Sex objects,
and happily up for it. When women
sauntered by, whistling, they’d bask
in smiles, browning slowly, loving
the light. Sometimes they’d clock men
looking them over. It made no odds;
they never got mad; it was too
being and fancied and in the sun.