Leftover Lady

By Charlotte San Juan

She comes around the
bar, unimpressed–
the pool stick, a light reed
in her hand, chopsticks
slanting into her knotted
bun. The way her brows
close like a gate, and her
lip is a cow that will not move,
even in the rain. Her boxy
cheeks, unflustered and
no she has no milkmaid
complexion, and no her eyes
are not fastened open, doe-like,
dewey and wet with whimsy,
no, her pout is not a pink hole that
men want to reach their
thumbs into, she has almost
thirty years behind her,
she knows how to break
men, it is indented all
over the carpet in deep
heel marks, it is how
she cracks the white
ball against the triangle
of other colors, breaking
conversation into stares,
her life stretched out across
the dirty green and all
the geometry in the world
belongs to her, as she
pulls pose and poise over
the table, some old empress
making mockery of all
young martini glasses that
clink pearl against the teeth
of those who are startled by
her abstract sexuality.
She is not afraid to tip
back her head and
laugh, really laugh at them.