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She dips the sleeve of her
pink jacket
into a glass of soda water from the bar;
a purple stain of Cabernet floats
among the bubbles. "Sixteen dollar wine
meets fifteen hundred dollar suit" she mutters,
laying her cigarette in the ashtray.
The barman brings her a towel, she presses
it lightly over the fading circle on the silk.
She watches me bite my fingernails,
crosses her fingers under her chin
and leans forward. "And what do you do
after you have bitten them off?
Collect them in a velvet-lined box
with your perfumed hankies?"
"You smoke, I bite my nails and leave any man
who stays long enough to know my middle name."
Her laugh is her best feature, rich and full.
It blends with the honk of a taxi outside
and the clink of glasses at the next table.
She takes my hands and looks into my eyes,
"I cry like you do" she says, "but I have volume"
Copyright © 1999
Shari Diane Willadson
All Rights Reserved
-Previously published September 1998, Gravity |
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