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Gaga in Broad Daylight
Picture this.
Times Square on a sultry
afternoon in late June...
A fiftyish Lady Gaga wannabe
brazenly stands in the middle
of the block, a cowgirl hat
crowning her teased blonde head.
A performance street artist who
never performs, she wears a
sheer blouse featuring sagging
(almost) naked breasts dangling
just south of municipal decency standards.
Her short but shapely legs
poke out of the shortest of short shorts
this side of a Coney Island boardwalk.
The heat is so oppressive, she removes
her hat. Her hair is the color of straw and
she has faded blue eyes misty with
melancholy, burdened with too much
mascara, her sad expression
framed in a halo of smoke.
As she puffs on a Marlboro, a
tourist stops to ask if she'll
pose with him for a photo. She
looks a little wobbly. He hands
her a dollar and she asks, "That's
all?" She looks directly in his
eyes, her fire engine red lips break
into a weak smile and she sputters,
"It's one buck per tit." He hands
her another dollar. His friend
takes the picture. The tourist thanks
the "Lady" and heads down the
block just in time to catch his wife
swap spit with the Naked Cowboy.
Welcome to New York City.
Vernon Waring won a Most Highly Commended Award in the 2011 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest for "juror number twelve"; the poem originally appeared on the Ascent Aspirations Magazine website. His poetry has also been featured in other literary journals including Nerve Cowboy, The Great American Poetry Show, and First Literary Review - East. His short fiction has been singled out for commendation in the Glimmer Train, New Millennium Writings Awards, and Soul Making Keats Literary Competitions. He lives in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
Email: Vernon Waring
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