Pink Lipstick

I know the playlist, if a woman wants to talk to a man

She’ll contact him, display a mirror of appreciation; even a sliver of glass

If that is all the time she has to gleam; silence is rarely oversight

Timing sets tones

Like a flute blown reverberating in a subtle echo

From introducing a man and a woman evaluating interplay

Legs facing the other on rotated barstools

Eye contact prolonged in the nets between staggered soliloquies

Amuse bouche of who a person is

Whetted lips from Springsteen to South Carolina

Bleeding off Jesus for a cosmopolitan exploration

Rushing into NOLA like a rambling rose from hotel California

Posturing Los Angeles to Paris, New York to Milan

Asking if she wants to get to know, to see what might be, and No

Lingers in the effrontery of effort expelled

To write an email like a salad plate, an unanswered phone call, an unrequited text

Three crows and so the disrespect to not be straight-forward crimps

Like a shrill sterility into his ears

Not her fault exactly that this is the third time in his recent memory

Women seem to feel it acceptable to let silence do all their talking

Absolutely fine in declaration to desist contact, but certain manners of recognition

Of what it takes for a man to display effort; to attempt to expose a piece of himself

To facilitate a possibility that she is exempt from the groundwork of a simple no thank you,

Given the paramount nature of civility in maintaining positive connections in her career endeavors

The planning in his hands and she stares him away like a plastic wrapper into a recycling bin

Appearing like she has no idea on what to say to this platypus

Writer in a business suit, punk in poetry, single father in a theater

Where his time is but an illusion of expressing he does not date often

Does not put himself out there where he does not see potential or the hint of a romantic

Underneath what modern shrapnel will do to an ambitious woman

So when he has an evening bearing even a modicum of promise  

He would like to believe the politeness of adult digested retort

Was a fundamental cache of recognition for a man attempting to be human

Because he’s just tired of rudeness of women treating vulnerability like poison

Ready to be surprised the other way and not be that certain kind of fool

Thinking romance is not childish or that gut reactions explain a Spotify society

Flipping channels until all development is auto-tuned past being in the present

Letting a gumbo warm on a burner until the roux has a chance to disperse

So that when lips hit the broth the tongue can speak from experience

She smelled like a walk-in closet romantic under the Prada sense of silk and pearl

Daring to make room for a man under an avalanche of shoe boxes, power suits, and Co Co Chanel

Like in a sea of heirs of for-appearance sake there was something tender

Wanting to slip petals of an ovule to navigate global waters

That a second passport at customs was occasionally possible to become accustomed in daydreams

To mark a stake of what it took to start to stir in this melting pot of bourbon

To present an image of a mother not in the picture and a father passed

Inking her own cartography on oceanic maps

To venture stepping beyond the ledge in entrepreneurial leverage in Louboutin’s red bottoms

To have a legion of faces like a sundial of time zones in a phone and where is her bed;

What city tonight and she reminded him of Nellie Bly

Around the world in Manolo Blahnik’s wandering who she was

If he would get a chance to talk to her on a Valencia shore taking a breath with a glass of cava

As the waves lapped a Mediterranean coast kissing ancient grapes

Just a passing thought, but he’s a poet and sees human passions like raindrops in the Bywater

That never have to materialize to make a subtle smile creep in

Like the scent of whiskey and orange to two anti-chocolatiers

Finding a whatever in a wherever for a platform of undefined  

Winking at the beauty of a person for exposure like film found in grandparents’ cedar chests

That there was a flash of genuine hinted in mutual respect fizzling into 

Imagining there is little way a woman in public relations does not realize a man calls

So he takes little doubt the lack of motion intentional to convey

So it is, just to say I wanted to try to play with a fellow explorer

Maybe not as far as the other side of the ocean, but tasting a tide

Knowing sometimes opposites can be like fire, primal, and burning hot blue

For however flash, Epicurean, and wild 

I saw a glimpse of that between us

Ripping a few layers of fabric

Drinking thankful for the vintage bottle while it lasted

So it is, impolite vinegar