For J. at the Uptown

In a town feathered by sleep
I found myself undone
by hair like fire, by skin
become erotic light

as you sang a litany
of specials, suggesting wine,
a glass of Tyrell's long
flat white, your lips glazing

the gray cloth of evening
for which I praise thee, sweet J.

Roger Pfingston
Copyright © 2002

Roger Pfingston's poems are scheduled to appear in Red River Review, The Louisville Review, Southern Indiana Review, and Poetry Midwest. A chapbook, Singing to the Garden, will be published in 2003 by Parallel Press at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.