a doris day lament

he did his sliding dance, with a twisty smooch across my
ankle, singing coffee songs filled with morning breaths

knowing that his buttery lips, fresh with borrowed tawdry
promise, could wrap me with an ancient sweet delusion

knowing in his artless glimmers that our rhumba moved
against the under syncopated rhythm of a doris day lament

so he scats his happy patter as i close the act's old curtains
and he panders to an audience that has never seen a stage

while i slow my heart mis-beating, cover mirrors for the day
he does his sliding dance, and smiles, and then he fades away