Drew Pisarra

Noir

Oh, to be Miss Lizabeth Scott,
(that lookalike of Lauren Bacall),
a sultry blonde who’s hot yet not
an A-list star – a luminary of lesser watt,
with B-movie credits like that noir Pitfall.
Oh, to be Miss Lizabeth Scott,
a Hitchcock blonde with no Hitchcock,
and no mid-career, rebound casting call.
For this icy blonde, though hot was not hot
enough to counter the Confidential plot
that caused her lavender-hued downfall.
Oh, to be the late Miss Lizabeth Scott
who despite looking good in every shot
took the hit decades prior to Stonewall.
That baritone blonde is hot yet not
much remembered anymore.
                                             I’ve got
a sneaking suspicion that I would enthrall
in femme fatale drag as Lizabeth Scott:
double-crossing, cold-blooded, and hot.

 

I’ll Drink to That

I miss my gin and tonics tinged with lime,
and how they sloppified my tongue and limbs.
That cocktail’s psychosexual enzymes
unzipped my pants in under two drink’s time,
What went down next? Here, memory grows dim.
I miss my gin and tonics tinged with lime.
That much I know. Beefeater gin’s sublime,
as soothing to the soul as Handel’s hymns.
That cocktail’s psychosexual enzymes
would unloose instincts much baser than mine,
should I drink booze again on some wild whim.
I miss my gin and tonics tinged with lime,
and cosmopolitans as cool as crime
and margaritas with their salted rims.
All cocktails’ psychosexual enzymes
are now forsaken for sobriety 
which granted me a prude’s monogamy
since tasty mocktails can’t, despite the lime,
revivify my slutty paradigm.

 

Drew Pisarra is the author of two books of sonnets, Periodic Boyfriends (2023) and Infinity Standing Up (2019) as well as another book of poems, Fassbinder: His Movies, My Poems which kicks off with a villanelle. He's also written two radio plays, Price in Purgatory (2023) and My Bedroom Is an Installation (2023), and two short story collections, You're Pretty Gay (2021) and Publick Spanking (1996).