“Local Glamor Queen” by John Grey

She longed to be made into a movie,

see her life on the big screen

in three different theaters at the multiplex,

a dazzling presence blinding

a string of male co-stars

while the audience looked on in awe

and dollars rained down on her.

 

She was weary of her ordinary life;

the job behind the fingernail polish counter

at a local department store,

the shame of a third floor apartment

that she shared with two roommates-in-kind.

 

She filled her imagination

with characters and storylines.

Surely, she told herself,

it’s only a matter of time

before the cameras begin rolling.

 

But Hollywood looked elsewhere

when she sauntered down the street

in dark glasses, tight jeans,

and the fox wrap

with the tiny stuffed head at one end.

 

She turned the heads of some guys

who wouldn’t even make it as extras

in her fantasy world,

and construction workers whistled

from on high,

but none of what she was

ever made it onto celluloid.

The best she could do was

pick up a credit or two

in some poems I was writing.

But I didn’t show them to her.

Her CV never knew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Grey is an Australian poet and US resident.  He has been published New Plains Review, South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, Big Muddy Review, Louisiana Review, Cape Rock, and Spoon River Poetry Review.