‘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.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem