by John Skoyles, after Weldon Kees
The day the dancer in the loud red dress
tossed her hair and said “What else is there to do?"
I remembered what my father told me.
She looked into the mirror applying makeup
while the traffic lights went on and off outside.
What my father told me was this:
women look into mirrors looking for men:
blondes toss their hair indifferently all night
but finally settle down; changes of heart
flicker like the traffic lights.
We fall in and out of love in rooms
where women wearing makeup
reflect our fantasies and lust:
so we're to blame for whatever they become.
And looking back, how could we
have taken that dancer so seriously?
But the way to forget
how she stepped out of her dress
was something our father couldn't tell us.
The lights go on and go off.