Classic Poem

The East Side Ladies
are all very chic
fresh furs on their shoulders
diamonds in their ears
their shoes are never dirty
and their dresses always pressed
and they speak in clipped sentences
and sound like Cary Grant
(with a higher pitch, of course)

One wonders why they hold their chins
a little higher than their heads
and their eyelids but half-opened
in a look of proud contempt
their chauffeurs rush to please them
limo doors snap open-shut
then
they disappear behind the glass
and one can’t see them anymore

But then one never could.


(Previously published in Some Words: A Place For Poetry, Feb 2000)