Out There Poem by Valerie Laws

‘Promise me I'll never have to go
out there again, ' says Carrie Fisher
to her new-found, late-found fiance
in ‘When Harry met Sally'. Meaning
the whole dating thing. Well, I'm
out there, again. Out there
without a prompter, or a net,
or any other metaphorical support.

What I do have is my dating self.
Unfortunately, she's been in a coma
for twenty-five years. Painfully prodded
awake, like Austin Powers, she's stuck
in the seventies. Hankering for Marc Bolan,
pretty, non-threatening boys. Wishing
she was Bowie-bisexual, divinely decadent.
Flinching from her reflection, distorted
in the faces of middle-aged men.

Unable to cope with a quarter century lost,
she longs to snog again, on sofas or in doorways,
her arms inside his coat; his patchouli blending
with her Aqua Manda, opening her eyes
to his mascara'd eyes, perverse like ‘Cabaret',
innocent like Bambi, reflecting the face
she still wears inside her head.