In a jaded cocktail lounge a clutch of older girls,
Never wives, who once perhaps played hard-to-get,
Now sidle round the corners of the passing years
And pour themselves into their drinks.
One dances backwards round the parquet squares,
Embraced by faded sepia dreams, a second sits
Idly manicuring; another repairs her make-up,
Stealing glances in her compact mirror towards the door.
In chunky beads and washed-up charity-shop glitz,
Arching backs, re-crossing legs and straightening seams,
Like restless cats on rainy afternoons they sit
Waiting to be picked up... by the bootstraps of their lives.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem