She sits in the coffee shop
of the Hilton Inn
drinking iced tea through a straw
between sessions of the Poetry
Convention

remarks that there’s
no mint for the tea

(long June sunset
on the Sandias)

Her voice evokes
dusky parlors
paneled in rosewood

magnolia leaves
dripping thick shadows
on the grass

the banked scent of honeysuckle

Her face like Colette's
eyes rimmed in kohl

her hair
dye-bottle black

She says she never misses
the Tuesday meetings
of the Jackson Literary Club

that she has published
“four volumes of verse,
privately printed”

and Eudora Welty
is her friend

She must have been
the belle of Yancey’s Landing
in the summer of ‘28

(tangled vines on riverbanks,
nightbirds crying
blackberry, blackberry)

her coming out
at the June cotillion
duly noted
in the Jackson Times
society page

Proposals of marriage
from three men
“of excellent background,
fine Mississippi families”

She refused them all

“I’ve been free all these years.
I go where I like.
I spent last winter
in the South of France.”

Her dress is rose-colored satin
          (nails painted to match)

A sapphire bracelet
dangles from her wrist
like a dance card

“But it’s like I said to Eudora
the other day

Sometimes
we single women
do get lonely.”

Mauve dusk now
on the Sandias.

          She looks over her shoulder
          as if at some
          remembered suitor
          who signed her dance card
          at the June cotillion.
.