© 2004  Donna Nocera-Miller

see her painting

Tête-à-tête

My cup was empty. 

The donut was stale.

The conversation had a perishable date that just expired.

The first ten minutes of intellectual abyss was a sure sign that the blind date was downhill from there, so I thought I would just leave.

"Where is the waitress?" I asked aloud.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked with an agitated twitch.

"I would have liked a little tête-à-tête," I said quite frankly.

"Why didn't ya say so in the first place," he said and winked.  "There's a hotel just across the street."

 "And why would we need a hotel for that?"

"Whoa, now you're talkin' Honey, and here I thought you were one of those stuffy, sophisticated broads, and here that's all you wanted."

"Well, that's all I ever wanted.  That and a little more coffee."

"Well when do you want it?" he asked in a slimy southern draw.

"Ten minutes ago would have been great, but I doubt that you can salvage the evening, but if you wish, you may try to do so now."

"Well how about let's going to my car."

"I think not," I said with attitude and bewilderment.

"Well, where then?"

"Why not right here?  Is there something wrong with that?"

Then he gave one more wink.

"Do you have something in your eye?" I asked as I began to gather my things.  He began to unzip his pants right there in the restaurant; I became spastic.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"You said you wanted it right now?"

"I said I wanted a little Tête-à-tête," and threw a five dollar bill on his lap as I got up from the booth and began to walk away.

"What's that for?" he asked as he zippered up his pants in a thither.

"A dictionary."

A Street in Puerto Viarta

dark skinned men ask the big, white girl

to go home with them

hey, pretty mama

there was a bullfight today

bleeding animal porcupined

with spears and yellow feathers

a baby, face striped from tears

that cut the dust from his cheeks,

saddled on the fleshy hip of a woman,

rides with palms outstretched

she stands by the first bus

that takes tourist down a rocky road

fields of nothingness

and corn that smells like raw sewage

village feast of beans and red cabbage

"See how the poor, poor live."

I sit on the bus next to hoity-toity linen ladies

gawking at three sided shacks

with tin roofs and dirt floors

they comment on the state of humanity

ragged clothes

shoeless feet

desolate faces

"How sad," they say,

but the Gorgons never get off the bus

diamond knuckles toss copper and silver over the glass

see the children dance into the maize

to gather faces of white men they will never know

pathetic attempt at good deeds

is God watching?

dust whirls against the orange red sky

the children will never forget

the children will never forget

the children will never forget that today...

they saw their first American.

Disconnected

She watches the window screen fall two stories,

Then sits with one leg out and one leg in.

Neon signs pulsate "open" and

Warp and woof her into a blur.

Only a phone book is left,

Her carbon tipped fingers brail across his name.

PO Box, but no street address.

No dial tone, disconnected, everything and her.

She tears out the page that bears his name,

And offers it to the nightingale.

It rises up to meet the curtain of moonlight,

Rides the choking air, falling limp to meet the hot pavement below.

She shouts her mantra to the faceless bobble-heads weaving between brick and mortar,

"I am 'p'.       

I am the cannibal faerie that will swallow you whole.

I am the Will O' the Wisp come to consume you,

just as I did him."

She scans the canopy of indigo, the blinker lights and the charcoal concrete.   An emotional pariah. 

A paretic brain.  A multitude of mint juleps.

She sizes up the squalor where her heart resides,

Then aims for a clear spot in the pavement.

All poems are copyrighted property of Donna Nocera-Miller.

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