Written by Claudia Coleman

A vision from another world,
She pranced and flounced.
Her lashes swept the old man
With a lascivious lure.
Her lewd remarks made us all laugh.

She danced around him, ate him up;

Wove him into her silk—turned him slowly round and round.

Taunted his bent frame, his knees gone weak.

But the old man didn’t seem to mind.

And waited patiently, for what I am not sure.

She was a lace peddler,
Who traipsed from street to street,
Beating on a drum, a baboon in tow,
For effect, I guess,
Though she certainly didn’t need it.

The sun was hot and the church bells
Tolled out their plaintive three-note melody.
Then she saw me heading toward the tobacconist.
Her hennaed hair, her ruffled dress,
Her twirl, her eyes, her burnished skin.

Bright nights, sloe-eyed mornings.
Romani visions swelled her breast.
Only we three seemed in her orbit,
Me, the baboon, and the old man,
Who all took for a fool.

I couldn’t dodge her gaze.
The street was empty save for her.
I knew what the painted ducks felt like
In the carnival shooting gallery.
But like the old man, I didn’t mind.

My soul will thrill, she told me,
To a fiery passion, and know truths
Only I could know, if I would keep
The cowry shell she placed in my palm.
And give her a hundred francs.

The baboon looked away as I pondered the exchange.
What message could I get, so new upon the world,
From the hopeless embers of her Roma eyes?
A small price to pay, I decided, for so fine a gift.
The old man, you might guess, took the cowry too.

Text © Claudia Coleman