Mrs Robinson’s Dress

Oyster moygashel, silk lined
in palest pink only a pearl
would dare to insert herself

into that world. She projects
her lighthouse beam across
every dollared pageant

of Los Angeles. She’s so tall
in her stilletos she can see
clear across the top of her husband’s

balding head, his thick specs
level with her cone-shaped breasts.
She locks double-lashed eyes

with Benjamin, tender
as a new born rabbit.
He is a snack, a morsel

a between the courses treat.
He’s meat. He cannot speak.
Later, she throws the dress

into the trash. Her maid
retrieves it, gives it closet space
until her oldest son comes out.

His Mrs Robinson act, a revelation
from port to shining port,
gains him access to

the captain’s table, the
first mate’s bed. Until
he jumps ship at Shields

sheds the dress.
His loss, my gain.
So here’s to you, Mrs Robinson.