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.