THE MAN ON THE BUS
The man on the bus looked guilty,
his eyes kept darting from here to there
Jew or Arab, how could I know the difference?
He wore a jacket in the summer
my inner alarm bell went off
I sat tighter in the seat,
if I have to go I have to go –
he got off at the next stop.
Lois Michal Unger
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SOMETHING ATTRACTIVE ABOUT DIRTY
Sometimes there’s something attractive about dirty. I took off my sleeveless undershirt, folded it and put it away, not in the hamper. It wasn’t dirty really, just old and grey like when you’ve washed white too many times. It felt sexy. Made me think of the time I was on a bus from Missouri to Texas. It was a two-day trip. I couldn’t sleep and stayed up reading Emile Zola’s ‘Nana’. There’s a scene when Nana and her friend Satin are sitting on a bed, talking. Nana is the successful rich courtesan and Satin is a street waif. She’s wearing a dirty slip. I was 18 and I’ve always remembered that.
Lois Michal Unger
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LOVE CAN BE HAPPY
Love can be happy
Mimi can escape from the garret
Satin doesn’t have to wear a dirty slip
Your lover can grow old and you don’t even notice
and someone will be there on that day that will befall you
Lois Michal Unger
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DON’T LET ANYONE GIVE YOU SPANISH FLY
‘Don’t let anyone give you Spanish Fly’
my aunt Flossie said
as we marched off to the nightclub
fishnet hose, a taffeta costume in hand
Earlier we’d sat in an agent’s office
‘Do you mix?’ he asked,
Never having heard the expression
I said ‘yes’
So, we danced in a nightclub
I had just quit college
in the bottom of my junior year
But y’know, I remember nothing that I learned there
except that Felice and I giggled in the Economics class
and I once could read Lamartine in French;
but half a century later
I still remember the opening chords of ‘The Johnson Rag’.
Lois Michal Unger
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THE HAIRDRESSER’S CRY IN THE TIME OF THE CORONAVIRUS
Where are all the women now
the ones who I told were beautiful
kissed them and hugged them
and got them a cup of coffee
I can’t do without you they’d say
where are they now
gone away
to live every day
without me
March 2020
Lois Michal Unger
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© Luigi Cazzaniga: cartoon 1
© Luigi Cazzaniga: cartoon 1
