Kyle Hemmings

The Colonel's Younger Lover

Among other things, all her lovers are stale, imitations of imitations. They hold umbrellas over Paris & have no sense of blue fifth jazz. When it rains, it doesn't necessarily pour a healthy broth. All wars are on hold. At the window, she is cabbage-patch sad and confides in toy dogs. Memory is a polka of exhausted I-told-you-so's. In the distance, there are insipid pinwheels that upon squinting turn out to be the neighbors. She turns. The maroon dress, one-piece and bought at a bargain, falls to the floor. Today, she gets naked for no one. The windows stay neutral like Switzerland. She's a demure alp of fog, a slip of misplaced vanity. At the knock on the door, everything will be alphabet clear, reassembled with the old stiches. The corners of the room recede in their erogenous dust. Sure.