for my mother, Mary Ellen

I dripped in feather boa.
Fedora on the table's edge.
tumbler of gin. All the smoke
in the joint wouldn't clear,
wouldn't let me see my audience.
Maybe they'd all gone home.
Maybe they'd hitched their star
to another star. Smoke curled
like blue fog into a clef, a few bars
to sing. I belted them out,
ditched the haze, forgot the dazed
anonymity of it all. There was spring
in my song, green spill and all
the crazy yellow
branching. The room lost
walls, the skyscrapers
twinkled from a distance:
a lost galaxy. New constellations.
Somewhere the Verrazano Bridge
tossed its pearls across the water.
I was still full throat,
shut my eyes and swayed
scarlet till the lights came down.