Night Lady

She piled up her makeup in mountains.
So slippery, so as the men who would try and climb her that night,
Would slide down into the cavity of her wit.

She thought of the pub, the club, the usual Saturday night out.
Amongst those horny, boozing men.
Who could give her those romantic times,
She needed in more sober times.

Stopping for a fraction of a brushstroke,
She remembered a love, which once, help her up.
Balancing her awkward insecurities in the brassiere of life.
Rushing downstairs, crying, yelling
‘Where are my black shoes?’

A thought in quick motion,
Flickered across the womb in her brain.
She had almost forgotten to take her pill.
She found the half-empty packet,
And took one.

Before she left,
She stole one last glance into the full-length mirror.
In case her hairspray hadn’t held.
In case her baby skin neck showed any evidence of last weeks meat injection.
In case her suspender belt offered its outline.

She was beautiful.
She had made herself so.
A real night lady.
And she acknowledged it to herself.

Her mother,
Calling from the odours of the ‘sorryicanthaveanyi’mdieting’ dinner.
A hesitant ‘let me show her I care’ murmur.
The night lady did not hear her mother’s voice.
Anyway, her reply was lost as she strolled out
Into the purse filed sunset.

Her steady, sullen walk to the graffiti strewn bus stop,
Was interrupted by the chatter of married, arm filled men
Returning from the offie.
She thought,
‘Will it be tonight?’
‘Will I meet the man whom I could really love?’
No, she would miss him,
In the bass beat of strobe lights,
Past midnight.

Sunday morning.
She fixed her clothes.
Rearranged her sought after dreams.
Again, they had not come true.
She locked away the truth of her night lady adventures in the insecurity of her mind.
And wondered and she wandered back home.
‘Why isn’t it a mans heart that I can find and not a penis?’
She was going home to sleep.

© 1980