Red Light Life

     You once saw this chick with wild, fiery-red curls sitting at the stop light of Magnolia and Pine. You marveled at her hair and her shiny, silver 1963 Stingray, not sure which you liked more. Perhaps it was the feeling it gave you. She had the top pulled back and "Boys of Summer" cranked, pumping out of the cabriolet, as she puffed out a series of tight smoke circles in the air with her Marlboro Red. You knew it was a Marlboro Red because the white and red pack, wrapped in cellophane, sat on the dash, staring at you. You were tempted to lean out the window and grub for one, forgetting you quit smoking ten years ago when you were young and dumb and free and dating old what’s-his-face. Yeah free. You remember that feeling. She felt like the silver-bullet train of freedom to you, in those two minutes and thirty-two seconds at the corner of Magnolia and Pine. You re-lived life before marriage and mortgages, before diapers and daycare, before disillusionment and divorce. The light turned green, that girl in the ’63 Stingray with the crazy red curls popped the clutch and stole across the intersection, leaving you in her wake with your memories. You released your foot off the brake of your SUV, littered with lost Barbie shoes and yesterday’s half-eaten PBJ, and once again contemplated leaving. Sighing, you knew you can never escape yourself. Instead, you stuck your hand between the seats, fished out that half-eaten PBJ, and thought who needs freedom anyway.

Vacancy

Need lurks in the corners of her closet

Trying on a ball gown, a clutch, a stole

Pretending she is anything but herself

 

Waffling between the here and the there, of fame and anonymity

Jimmy Choo heels, borrowed Yurman, Prada on loan

Insecure steps on the red carpet she walks

 

Courage in a bottle, a pill, a man, she requires

For tonight’s masquerade, her anonymous task, she selects a numbing mask and

Free-flowing Vodka Gimlets to quiet her nerves

 

Desire harpooned that summer in Cannes

This chameleon, playing charades, she does pretend

Silk straps off her shoulders fall

 

Passionate promises, poor choices provoked

His smell on her she cannot escape

It’s a shame they will never know his name