She greets me in the shop
as we stand at the counter.
Startled, I respond too warmly.
She makes the cow eyes at me.
Pale, dishevelled, she’s lost
her sleekness along with her game.
(Some are still fooled, most stand
with her intended victim.)
I look away and place my order.
Later her man whom I’ve never met
sends me drunken emails. I feel
intense rage – his or mine?
[Poem #77]
This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....