in memory of Barnaby Wilde

“Why not?” she says.

“Can’t”

“Not even a little bit?”

“Forget it”

“You’ve upset me now.”

“You really want me to?”

“Yes please”

“Pass me the ashtray”

“Ok.” Whispering discretely to the nearby crowd: “I think he’s gonna write a poem”

“Oh, is he? How wonderful!’ The chorus chants, immersed in paroxysms of levity and giggling hushed by a sudden innocent blush shared quietly between them.

“Could you write one about me?” she asks haughtily.

“What about you?”

“My indescribable beauty.” More explosions of embarrassed surprise, their legs quivering with the anticipation at the sound of verses yet unsaid.

“It’s gonna be tough if it’s indescribable”

“About my features, then, sweetheart. Just show them how good you are with that pen”

“Oh, do!”

Calmly lit the cigarette rests uneasily on fingers splayed upon the glassy polished wood seen only in the best houses. The chorus now assembled, he mulls over a word and a globule of saliva before swallowing one and mouthing the other.

“He’s so cont-em-plative,” the blond exclaims, forcing the syllables into a word she read last week.

“Speak, honey.”

“When I’m ready.”

Gasping smoke he forces a smile

“You see girls? My husband the poet!” A shrill orgasmic muttering flies up into the fervor of their touching legs, felt deep within them somehow inspired by a smiling expression, half-felt, plastered on his face.

“What should we do, sweetheart? While you’re writing, I mean.”

“Why don’t you take the girls into the kitchen for a drink, dear. I’ve just gotta sit for a second.”

“Alright. Girls, let’s get some martinis.”

Haltingly striding they pace toward the swinging kitchen door, turning sporadically to see his back hunched over another empty page, sizzling in their canvas shoes at the sadness of his blue-smoke sighs let out toward the sky.

“Isn’t it wonderful, Alice? You are so lucky.” The multitudinous voices chant in sequence, smiling through jealously-clenched bleached teeth.

“It’s amazing what he does. To just put a pen to paper like that . I can’t believe what he comes up with sometimes.”

He sips his whiskey and slowly stubs his cigarette.

“That book of poems just came out last night, didn’t it?”

“Very highly esteemed, I heard.”

“Yes. He dedicated it to me.”

“Aww. How wonderful!” They flush in anticipation of receiving the steady cadence of his words again, hearing those lilting lines read out as that smile spilt over their eager faces.

“What’s he working on now, Alice? A real book?”

“Maybe. Say’s he’s got to wait a while”

“Recharge the batteries, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t suppose you’re helping “recharge those batteries,” eh Alice?” Mirthful knowing smirks start slightly, tempered by their trembling knees.

“Don’t be vulgar Jane,” she scolds, though smiling forgivingly. “How’s it going in there, sweety?”

He looks at the Technicolor array of books weighing on the cheap boards of the shelf directly before him. He imagines making love to each of the girls, a dream. A stifled groan seeps slowly through cracking lips, his eyes accommodating the ease of closing.

She steps into the sunlit slit left by the half closed kitchen door. The clinking of glass on glass reminds him of the tender thighs beneath those weightless skirts.

“I said, “how”s it going in here?’”

“What?”

“What’ve you written?”

“Nothing yet, dear. Waiting for inspiration.”

She slides across the floor to meet his closed-eye stare

“None of those poems were ever about me, were they?”

“Of course they were.”

“All of them?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean? Who else is there in your life besides me?”

“No one, dear. Not now.”

“I’m the only one still even pretending to stand you anyhow.” She gestures mockingly toward the kitchen door. “They don’t know you like I know you.”

“What a charming thought, dear.”

She bends down into the fog of cologne, whiskey, and tobacco floating off him like a plague.

“Why have you pretended to love me for so long?”

“I needed someone else in my life other than me. It was too lonely before.”

“You lied to me.”

“There was nothing else I could do. I didn’t know –”

“We could’ve been happy if you’d allowed yourself to be. I was ready. I wanted to make you happy.”

“You tried, dear. I was happy with you but you just couldn’t believe me.”

“And now? You write these poems without any feeling, despairing life because, what, nobody loves you?”

“Because I can’t be happy, even when you say you love me.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“I don’t know.”

Just then the slightly shy brunette slinks into the room and stands meekly in the light. She smiles and asks where they keep the vermouth. Receiving no immediate answer, she lingers there as they maintain the tableau.

“Another whiskey, dear?”

“I’ll get it.”

“No, let me. You just sit back and think.”

She slips over to the liquor cabinet and places a thin green bottle in the girl’s soft porcelain palms. Twisting the cap from the whiskey bottle, she pours his drink and brings the glass back full.

“You want the girls to come back in?”

“Not just yet. I may be some time.”

Smiling coldly now he imagines her heavy gaze upon him. She’s got two buttons undone.

She steps away for a second before taking in his limp form filling the chair under a yellow lamplight smirking to himself.

“He needs some time, girls.”

They sigh a little disappointment. They want to inspire him

“Why doesn’t he go for a walk? We can wait for his inspiration”

“No, he’s fine. He might need a few minutes to gather his thoughts, though.”

They solemnly acknowledge the necessity of artistic cont-em-plation and sip lightly at their emptying drinks, lips curling slightly over the frosted glass’s edge.

“Have you read the book Alice?”

“Some of it. He never showed it to me before the release, and then I asked him to explain it and he refused.”

“Poetry can’t be paraphrased, darling,” a lone call sounds weakly from under the door.

“Right dear,” she whispers softly down towards her chest. “He’s full of shit like that.”

Giggling slightly, they want to understand.

“You were high school sweethearts, weren’t you, Alice?”

“What?” somewhat distractedly she’s still staring at the door.

“You and him, you guys fell in love quite early on.”

“Early on? Oh, yes.”

“Was he your first?”

“First what?” she replied with subtle venom.

“Love, of course!”

“Oh. Love.”

“Well?”

“Yes, of course he was. I was quite young. He swept me off my feet,” she hears herself droning in coarse, monotonous prose.

“Did he write poems for you then?”

“Yes. Much different ones than now, I think.”

“Did you keep them?”

“They’re in a box.”

“Can we see them?”

“Oh, can we?”

Pleading plaintive cries unheeded shrilly sound.

“Not right now.”

He slips a little into sleep as the whiskey tumbles onto the glass wood tabletop and his hand gently eases down to meet his thigh. The cigarette smoke trails slowly onto the ceiling before drifting into oblivion under the watchful glare of a yellow table lamp.

Placing a drink cooly on the counter, she turns again to their gleaming anxious cheeks, atop which rest much younger eyes glistening still in the sunlight streaming in.

“I think he’s done now, girls. Let’s see.”