Oasis

Something cool as a stiletto

glints in the elegant woman, cold in the hot saloon,

eyes blue and clear as diamonds,

ice in her glass, snow in her hair,

icy in her barside chair,

somehow frozen in summer air,

in the sultry late afternoon.

She glimmers disdain

over all the other strangers in the mirror,

where the bartender serves,

a florid bull at the mahogany bar.

Before him her disregard,

her tall chill style freshly fixed,

a salty frosted margarita.

The hot reel of the place comes swirling around her,

as afternoon lengthens:

the dazzly dance of waiters,

the pump of their black toreador legs,

the flashing heat of conchos

hammered turquoise lumps

heavy slung at quick hips.

The boy's face glows wet and golden,

a brown sun beamed

across the cool chrome closure of bar railings,

against the silver shiver

of her barstool cocktail cage.

"Wine?" he asks her closely,

the words steaming from laughing purple lips,

grapes split open at noon:

"Wine red as my mouth,

fiery licks from sunny Spanish vineyards

to your deep cool places?"

"Yes, please," she exhales,

her throat tendering, her lap unfurling,

the streaks of her limbs

melting down the legs of her chair.

From her hand splashes metal,

an iced clink of coins across the vitrine bar,

the cold restlessness of glassware.

She rises, and walks long away,

all cause for thirst.

                               Washington, DC/June 1990