Pg. 41 — WOMAN IN BLACK, GIRL IN PINK by Richard Stevenson
I was seventeen,
working the late shift
at the 7-11.
She swished in –
effete, seventies’
Bowie wannabe, I thought.
Cruised the aisles,
grabbed a pack of smokes
(You could do that then)
plunked it down on the counter,
then dove into her purse
for a wad of cash.
Didn’t say a thing.
Floppy hat, cheap wig
Dark Mac, collar up –
Might have been the femme fatale
In some 50’s noir B flick
but for the damn hand –
Definitely female –
the way her fingers moved,
but whiter than white –
Almost translucent,
kinda blue. Not albino –
the hand had a pigment…
Oh! Why can’t I remember
the details? Lacquered red nails…
Long, thin fingers. She had thin lips.
Almost no lips and no nose.
Jackie O sunglasses. Higher
than high cheek bones…
Heck, I didn’t know nothin’
‘bout MIBs or UFOs back then –
accept what I glommed off the tube.
But seventies glam rockers
would have dug her fifties chic.
Bowie did later as the Thin White Duke.
I betcha I had a third
kinda encounter on accounta
her creepy demeanor. Not human.
Didn’t say a thing, collect
change or nothin’, just click
Clicked out on high heels.
A little wobbly, I thought.
Not like she was practiced
at turning a gam. A bit fey –
More Faye Wray! I betcha
I saw a hubrid! I did! I did!
I did see a hubrid –
Half-human, half-alien –
Like anyone else at 2:00 AM, I guess –
in the 7-11, when I was seventeen.
Editor’s Note: Richard states that these poems are from the “continuing saga of cryptid, ET/saucer, and Fortean lore poems that continues with Dark Watchers and Hairy Hullabaloo. Hope you can use a little humour . . . . Good fun in these bad Covid days.”
Richard Stevenson
Richard is a retired College English and Creative Writing instructor who taught at Lethbridge College for thirty years before moving to Nanaimo. He has published thirty books in that time, the most recent of which are a long poem sequence on the Clifford Olson serial murder case, Rock, Scissors, Paper, and a haikai collection, A Gaggle of Geese. Several books in the cryptid critter, ET, and Fortean lore series are forthcoming: a trilogy called Cryptid Shindig (containing the volumes If a Dolphin Had Digits, Nightcrawlers, and Radioactive Frogs) and a stand-alone collection, An Abominable Swamp Slob Named Bob.