poem
Volume 34, Number 4

Sapioselective

This bluestocking is dark-banged,
and even if born with the blondness
of a Veronica Lake, she'd have
dyed it as black as Vampira's.
Unequivocally sapiosexual, she's
perched on the mezzanine of a downtown
gallery opening. With perfect vision
camoed behind horn-rimmed Windsors,
she can tell a literary theorist
from a cultural anthropologist,
a poète maudit from a poet manqué,
all while peering through a thicket
of milling, Prosecco-swilling,
Michelangelo-mentioning art snobs.

A male of her species hesitates
near the entrance. Down she swoops.
Her look is come-hither,
but the confidence in her voice
causes vague unease
in Mr. Pulitzer Candidate.
What are you currently reading?
she offhandedly asks. His answer
will be a make-or-break
for the glasses coming off
later on.


—R. A. Allen