Daphne by David Spicer

and I met in a jazz club, The Right
Bank, where she sang Patti Page
and Doris Day, her sultry voice
moaning through cigarette smoke
and dimmed lights. A hermit,
I grinned when her white lipstick
beckoned me and my scraggy goatee.
After her set, we danced outside
in the rain to Nina Simone
on the jukebox. Her scent
reminded me of cinnamon,
and, eschewing etiquette, I asked
if she’d like a glass of burgundy.
Toothpick between chalk-white lips,
she said, More than a fireman
with a shovel in a hurricane.
I smelled her again, Bless you,
my love, I genuflected, raindrops
dripping from my eyebrows.
Arms akimbo, she pushed me against
the door, Oh, I’d love to be your jailer,
stranger. Just unbutton my blouse
like a good slave, and I did. Now,
she chains me while winking at her
Persian cat and singing in the nude,
How Much Is That Kitty in the Window?

David Spicer has had poems in Chiron Review, Alcatraz, Gargoyle, Ploughshares, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. The author of Everybody Has a Story and four chapbooks, he’s the former editor of raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books. He is scheduled to have From the Limbs of a Pear Tree, (Flutter Press) released in the Fall of 2017.