Cindy

poem

Cindy knelt at her bedstand, clutching a rosary, 

whispering a prayer for the downtrodden, 

and for the Sisters of Mercy who'd raised her 

in the Angel Guardian Orphanage. 

Light flickered, the kitchenette's fluorescent tube,

bleeding through the gaps in her bedroom door. 

She yanked a shade string, her eyes narrowing

as a patrol car's lamps strobed the window. 

Outside the murk of her Greenwich Village flat,

neon reflected in rain puddles; a rat scurried

down a gutter drain. 

Twenty years before, she'd slept with Artie Shaw.

She was a moll with a mouth full of pearls, 

walking where she pleased, shopping 5th Avenue

with flaming red hair and a smatter of freckles

on her porcelain broach complexion. 

 

Cindy touched her face, reliving the horror

of the shotgun stock that ruined her looks. 

She'd known better than to toy with a mob boss's son.

But she'd let him pursue her until a love triangle 

ended his life and brought the father's revenge.

She brought the crucifix to her lips,

whispered Adieu, then reached for

the pistol in her bedstand's drawer.