Said the only other woman at the banquet
for hedge fund managers at the Hotel Pierre.
(O and one more gal, an aide who knew
where to seat me.) On the several ways
a poem is like a hedge fund: Each a lawless
vehicle turbo-powered by a keen eye for
currencies, dark thirst for the chthonic
beneath. Each delivers rich interest to
initiates, skis atop vast
warrens of molten resentment.
I still love it where I don’t belong,
where there’s no question of my staying.
I miss dating. I wasn’t angling to be
smartest lady at that spread. Fortunate,
as this lady helped run the U.N., or New York,
while I’d only stumbled upon another free
meal, change of scene, reckless
for a fundamental I lacked, like the luck
art must deny, which is why I thanked
her warmly when I said goodbye.
– Alexis Quinlan
* * *
Alexis Quinlan is a writer and teacher in New York. Her work has appeared in Salon, Self, Texas Monthly and The London Times Sunday Magazine, among others.
* * *
