My Other Life by Barbara Eknoian

 I’m Lady Jay playing piano

in a honky-tonk nightclub

surrounded by drinkers

and party-hearty patrons,

who want to be entertained

until the sun

creeps under the doorway.

 

Then I return home to sleep

most of the day

only to rise and dress

for the next night’s set.

I choose a top sprinkled

with sequins, showing cleavage,

then spray Shalimar on my wrists.

 

As soon as I enter the joint,

Tony, the bartender, serves me

a Seven & Seven,

and the patrons’ faces light up.

Someone shuts off the jukebox

and shouts,

We’re going to have a good time.

Lady Jay is here!

Barbara Eknoian is a poet and writer. Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, Red Shift, Newverse News, and Silver Birch Press's anthologies. Her books are available on Amazon. She hails from New Jersey, but lives in California for many years and has never lost her Jersey accent..