Awaiting Another War in D Minor by Marge Simon
narrated by John C. Mannone
Illustration by Sue Babcock
Jennifer arranges a set of Edwardian chairs
side by side on the beach, one red, one brown.
I smile, for she wears her best bombazine blouse,
giving me a hint of the night’s festivities ahead.
Licorice gives her a headache, but she enjoys the taste,
and the color compliments her attire, even to the point
of turning her lips and tongue and teeth black.
We bleed ourselves under the moon’s horn.
Jenny’s fluted silver dipper shines with our fluids,
and smiling, she ladles our offerings into the tureen.
Once a communal bowl, it is again just so.
Later, when the moon lowers in the southern skies,
she’ll summon the drinkers to partake of the bowl,
followed by a group read of The Wasteland.
We do enjoy those moments,
waiting for another war to manifest itself,
if not in the worlds beyond our door,
then here tonight on this silver beach,
where a beautiful woman cellist plays
Bach’s Suite Number Two in D Minor
and the soldiers dance around her, mad with lust.
Marge Simon is a past president of the SFPA and editor of Star*Line. A former 1995 Best Long Poem Rhysling winner, she won the Bram Stoker Award™ for Superior achievement in poetry, 2008, the Strange Horizons Readers Award, 2010, and the SFPA Dwarf Stars Award for short poetry, 2012. Her flash fiction has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Vestal Review, more. www.margesimon.com
Tags: Marge Simon, Poetry