A Few Hours

by Mara Buck

                               

Buy me shrimp

on a clear day when

I can see the blue of

the ocean replicated in

the clean white plate

the waiter brings

as he stumbles to our table.

And let there be wine.

Oh, not an obnoxious

cork-sniffing vintage, only

something soft and cool

that soothingly sits politely

within its twinkling glass.

Please have a simple

violinist silhouetted against

that sea, playing, a bit

of bright Vivaldi.

All these things,

will you do for me?

Let me sit pertly in

a darkened, classy club—maybe

the Carlyle, maybe the Vanguard—

listening to sophisticated stylings

with those who drink too much,

neither to forget nor to remember,

but only because it is there.

My little black dress will

be sexy, yet not tart,

and I will indulge in Campari

while someone else pays the bill.

I will be witty. I will be gay.

I will sparkle.

I yearn to be with people who are glib.

I crave cleverness.

Give me a quip, a pun—

quick-witted banter.

Show me the mettle of your

gray matter.

Surround me with a neverending

round of crystal martinis

of the mind.

Loosen my tongue with champagne.

Bathe me in kindly

diamond-reflected winks.

Keep the music smoky to match

the innuendo of the other little black dresses

who circle me with embracing cattiness.

Oh, take me back to that place

where all is parties or nothing at all.

Let me glitter, let me astonish, let me flirt,

until the time comes when I must

go home alone, for tomorrow

I must be whatever passes for me.

* * * * *

"A Few Hours" was the first place winner of the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Poetry Prize, 2016. Author holds all rights.