A Poem

Tags of songs, like salvaged buttons
off vanished dresses, a date
Thursday a week at eight, some guilt
for a cab she not only could not afford but:
pretty immoment matter
greets Dorabella’s mounting
or are they subtracting moments. “Surely
should be otherwise, should stop, be
thought about, have other quality
than surprise. When was I last surprised?”
Now more a lilac in rain than a crocus
between her office and some gin, Dorabella
herself encounters numerously,
a not so bad looker for a tied and dyed,
a moustached nun of dubious inner life,
a character actress of no talent and less means,
a swami-smitten dowager needling a dull chauffeur,
or a hurrying woman smoothing gloves.

“What would it be like
to change, sharply as a traffic light?”

Dorabella makes a face
at life, and hurries.