Charity Balls

I had a fellowship, but lived poorly

On slices of pizza.

Later, a career of washing lettuce;

but I have always been the same.

It’s a question of acquiring a mastery of tone

Beneath the crystal chandeliers and champagne

on a glass table top.

At the age of five I thought Scarlett O’Hara

a fictional character. It was not until

The age of forty-eight I knew she was real.

Old clothes and bedroom slippers and a scarf

Wrapped around her head

In low cost tenement housing.

She began talking about my writing

And her sex life.

I’m curt by nature and dolorous.

But I knew if I worked hard I’d eventually make it.