Stuck again at closing time,
last calls for final drafts.
Another flirtatious poem
sits alone across the room,
twirls the swizzle stick of memory
in the glass.
Like all the women of desire
I have known
she is a constant mystery.
She curls her hair
around her ear and orders another,
the seductive glance
that pesters the night.
Once again in perfect cadence
I’ll climb the stairs
to bed without the perfect metaphor.
Oh, but for a clever simile,
a flirt from a heart as big as a whale
that would make her smile,
convince her,
that this is my kind of guy,
like,
“Didn’t I meet you once in a poem
late at night?”
and she says,
“I don’t recall ever being in one
of your poems late at night,
was I drunk?”
“Why yes, yes you were! We both were,
and we felt something in common,
a need lonely people at night only know.
For a slender moment we had it right,
we ran it through spell check
and clicked on print.”
“I remember now,” she says,
“And you didn’t look so good
the next morning.”
Ritch Kepler