To Pam Williams

Sworn to fun and fancy free,
away from home, fresh out of school,
roommates, and both twenty-three
still slaving in the typing pool.

Each armed with Cosmo’s bag of tricks,
plus a Liberal Arts Degree.
We rang in 1986 —
the apex of modernity.

We lived on salads, dreams and hopes
in well-curated thrift shop clothes.
We checked our daily horoscopes,
and longed to meet our Romeos.

At fifty-odd, I recollect
so little of the nine to five —
quite meaningless in retrospect.
But Friday nights, we came alive!

Big hair, bangles, French perfumes,
lipstick, satin, black stilettos.
Posh soirees in banquet rooms,
discoteques in dicey ghettos.

Champagne, Tequila, Lucky Strikes.
The steady stream of men we kissed
on beaches, dance floors, motorbikes —
as if we had a bucket list!

One morning in the autumn haze,
without a sigh or second thought,
we packed and moved our separate ways.
The circumstances? I forgot.

From time to time I think of you,
and want so much to say “Hello.”
but Google turns up not one clue.
What happened? I may never know . . .

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