Glass of Water Encounter

scotch-lit surely. He touches his glasses.

Nightie-less, dugs whipping, hair sprung,

some music inside, out, wet tongue

tip at her lip, no mere palsied shuffle,

both bony feet lifted, elbows awful.

Shakespeare’s banshee of wailing parts,

a woman with hair, a woman with warts.

He’s fixed to the floor. Dear Heloise:

do other presumed-sane mothers do this—

wait in the dark after the ball

to strip for their sons at the end of the hall?

A dream, insists his sister

but his first wife knows better.