Romance

by Oonah V Joslin

Sap green and silky

Toulouse Lautrec printed ladies

showed their garters on my demure dress.

I consented to dance with monsieur.

Mais oui,

la petite Irelandaise

ripe for the plucking

to a farmer’s eyes

and as la Fête

twinkled all around us

he whispered to me,

Tu as des beaux seins.

I laughed aloud of course,

Nice tits indeed!

What did he think I was,

a milking cow?

Somewhere between true love

and risible translation

there must be some men out there

who knew women had brains.

* * * * *

Oonah V Joslin is poetry editor at The Linnet’s Wings. She has won prizes for both poetry and micro-fiction. Her book Three Pounds of Cells ISBN: 13: 978-1535486491 is available online from Linnet’s Wings Press and you can see and hear Oonah read in this National Trust video. The first part of her novella A Genie in a Jam is serialised at Bewildering Stories, along with a large body of her work (see Bibliography). You can follow Oonah on Facebook or at Parallel Oonahverse https://oovj.wordpress.com/.