SilverMoon

Sip your Sherry, you Dear Lady

Do not lend your lace-gloved hand to the gardener
yellowed from the times when
bespectacled boys bratted around you
thrusting corsages, shy fisted,
ceremoniously like daddy did
and did until he found
the right woman
who found the right nanny,
beady eyed with aquiline nose.

Malodorous Evening of Paris
little blue bottles, plastic gold rimmed
lined neatly in a row on your bureau
like skinny ducklings starved,
your ears overfed in the mornings.

Memories rush unbid from your ribbons long frayed
the cotillion dances where boy men bowed to blushed skin
and that first bold kiss, tongue moving to Lester Landon’s band.

Men, like circles, surround you; dizzying you
“Oh, your eyes are the color of violet!”
“Your lips are plump like a cushion in my heart”

And you arch your neck. A cat’s slow curl,
hair pinned back for the tease you could then afford

Time is a tyrant, terribly skewed
Now is not the time to cry sober

Sip your sherry, you dear lady
in the living room where your ancestors spoke of ancestors
where old carpet stains keep you company

Do not lend your lace-gloved hand to the gardener.

He is not your beau.