Prom at the golf club house. What would go on
to be another tribute band. My fiancé flown in
from Texas where he’d moved for college,
after I suggested his best friend as chaperone.
Dress better suited for a church picnic blanket—
red, white check cotton. Everyone else—slinky.
In the photograph his fingers stretched to capacity
more like holding me back than in, wads of tissue
in my fist and purse—always one flu or another,
young enough to dance through it.
I stopped to watch Monica and Julie
climb in through one of the ground floor windows,
willowy and woozy.
Piss and vinegar.
Full of beans.
Money and cocaine.
Statuesque. Regal.
Effortlessness I’d never have.
Monica sauntered over, our first, “hello”.
She reached around, stroked my backside.
Her eyes and face— like a water painting,
exuberance blurring by a furrowing brow,
her mouth turning down, a tilt. Moving off,
like a cat in a cloud.
A gesture I’d remember for decades more fondly
than my fiancé’s abrasive grip.
