I met a girl
Red lights blazing
flashing backstreet bars
in an alleyway
Red lights blazing
flashing backstreet bars
in an alleyway
shadows silent behind
lamppost’s, thin stripped
light bouncing off
her shoulders, Medusa
scantily clad
dancing through her
fractured Halo,
stockings hiked up
high, lest the cold
penetrate, short skirt
on latticed silhouette(s)
tiptoes pointing
slipping in behind
taxis. Threadbare
pockets strain
fingertips smooth into
green folds;
a handful of jewels
lining her silk purse.
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I wrote this poem in 2007 after I saw a street worker standing under a lamppost on Cross Street in Auckland, New Zealand. I was having a cigarette outside Sparty’s (a swingers club) and was struck by how the street light cast shadows around her as she moved. I remember it was a particularly cold evening. When a taxi pulled over to chat with her, she assumed the usual cliched position of leaning in through the window… Jx