Poetry by Emilee Gregory
I thought adulthood would involve more card games at dinner parties.
Say the world ‘grown-up,’ and I thought:
playing cards with bent corners abandoned on a wrought iron table,
glasses of wine with lipstick prints,
cigarettes—still smoldering—laid to rest in handmade ashtrays,
picked-over small plates bearing flakes of puff pastry,
muttered curses carried on breath that never outran the scent of Merlot,
runs in nylon stockings—
smears of orange-y makeup cut off at the neck,
stale floral perfume applied to pressure points,
an orange sun sitting low and heavy in the sky—
the green flash as it gave up and succumbed to the sea—
lizards with bulging necks scurrying up and down stucco walls,
iridescent pool water bogged down by brown leaves and dead flies,
a king-sized bed with only one side of the sheets turned down.
