club

May 4, 2022

YOU ARE INVITED

I have to compliment you,
after all you ignored me
for four years in high school,
condemned me to the outcasts,
the geeks, the losers, the barely
tolerated and then only when
the Headmaster was watching.

I didn’t go to your parties,
no one without an invitation
ever dared, was left to the
clubs no one wanted to join,
but I have to say I was
truly surprised, shocked almost
when your letter came,
reminding me of our great
years of friendship, our
camaraderie then, but
regrettably I must decline
to contribute to our class fund.

July 5, 2020

THE CLUB

It’s jazz, it’s a club,
but there what once was
is no more, there are
no ashtrays on the table,
overflowing early into
the second set, no cloud
of cigarette smoke descending
from the too dark ceiling.
There is no recognizable odor
of a freshly lit Gaulloise,
in the trembling fingers of
a young man trying to look cool,
trying not to cough on each
inhalation, in the calm fingers
of a young woman who
you know speaks the fluent
French of her homeland.
It is none of those things
but it is jazz, it is a club
and in this city, now, it must suffice.

April 4, 2019

WINDSOR EVENING

I sit in the window
staring out over the rain slicked streets
to the passing of the occasional car
and the three men who glance furtively
at the door of the “Adult Entertainment” club.
The old oak floors are scarred
by too many heels. The railing along the window
is bolted into the floor, suspending
the white lace curtains.
The young woman sits at the next table,
Players cigarette nestled between her fingers,
trying to conceal her anxiety.
She nurses the cup of coffee,
staring at the two menus resting on the table.
She pulls at the hem of her pink ramie sweater
and glances periodically at her watch.
Her leg, encased in stone washed denim
swings like a metronome as she stares
at the Detroit News, not reading.
She lifts her head, and a smile
creeps across her lips as her friend enters,
skirt dripping water, forming a small puddle
on the floor under her chair.
The waitress, robed in a black satin pantsuit
brings the escargot, on their bed
of linguine, and the evening washes on.

First Appeared in Eratica: Half a Bubble Off Plumb, Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter
1999.