An American Beauty

 

 

She curves with feline grace and evokes

pangs of painful passion so powerful

the boys don't see her face and bushy hair

on steamy dark nights on lonely roads back seat, front seat,

it's always the same, and some come back, steadies;

but no parties, ever, no bright lights, no people gaily dressed,

no wedding receptions with tossed bouquets and white garters,

no church pot luck dinners or a cousin's backyard barbeque;

but sometimes in the shadowed huddles of a crowded bar,

the swill and smell of spilled beer in the back corner,

on a date, she lets them touch her, sometimes more than one,

she lets them; her father told her she took after her aunt,

his ugly sister, right before he left forever, her mother

told her makeup might help and low cut dresses, short skirts;

but the boys like her in the swirling maelstrom of lights,

in the far corner on the small stage she dances,

and sometimes she lets them touch her, and the pills help,

and she prays her baby girl will be pretty.

 

 

Robert L. Vogel

Knoxville, 2014