Sipping the drink named after her,
she tells me how each bartender
makes it slightly different.

All night I listened to her complaints:
Not enough Southern Comfort.
Inferior brand of cranberry juice.
Too much lime.

The years have found their tomorrow in her.
Her 17″ waist gone to Doritos and Little Debbies,
pale skin lost the war to tanning booths,
eyebrows morphed into overpopulated metropolises
sprawling toward the suburbs,
hair a tangled mass of Miss Clairol Twilight Mahogany.

She still has to be the center of attention though,
still wants what she can’t have,
wants us all to call her Tara,
sports a t-shirt that says Uber Brat.

The karaoke stage has become her ballroom
where she ends each song
with a giggle, a curtsey, and a Fiddle-dee-dee.
Imagines every man in the place is after her.

That guy she’s seeing now doesn’t give a damn
about her, the bartender whispers.
He puts a fresh drink in front of her
as she plops down on the barstool beside me,
the smell of musky sweat mingling with Obsession.
She flutters her false eyelashes and downs half the glass.
Now there’s a man who knows his Scarlett O’Hara, she winks,
gazing past him at her reflection in the mirror.
She pulls out her lipstick
and darkens the heart of her smile.Allison Thorpe is a writer from Lexington, KY. A Pushcart nominee and author of several poetry collections, she has appeared in such journals as Appalachian Heritage, The Citron Review, Meat for Tea, South85 Journal, Scapegoat Review, The Meadow, Clapboard House, Connecticut River Review, and Freshwater.