Starless Poem by Charles Lara

Sweet 16th and my stepdaughter
is having a limo
pick her and her
seven closest friends
to drive them into the city
for dinner at a restaurant
where I took a date
almost 20 years earlier.
I can’t say I remember the food
but I still to this date
can taste the dessert.
Her friends come in
dressed in jeans and high heels,
their faces struggle to
look like young women
still I could see
a child behind
most of their eyes.
Their hair in near perfection
and small clouds of designer perfumes
grabs my dog’s attention.
They pose for pictures
between idle chat
and excited laughter.
I continue to watch
as they walk from
one room to another,
I notice that
they awkwardly walk
like beat up cowboys
getting off a bull or
an injured duck outside
of hunting season.
I wave as they pass by me,
their voices are loud
very very very loud,
and they burp and smack their lips
like grazing herds.
I wait to see if
anyone of them would
show the slightest indication
of femininity like, Audrey Hepburn
or Grace Kelly’s gesticulations,
still not one gives a
hint of it, nothing.
More loud over-talking
amongst each other
and the Limo pulls up
to the front of the house
and they trample off like
thoroughbreds out of the gate
and I think how they don’t
make them like they used too.