She caught a man from across the room; her sticky-eyes cooed him behind the black velvet curtain. Her mind wandered as she rhythmically rocked her body on his excited lap. When her mother died, a boy brought her to a hidden fountain in the garden of Our Lady of Sorrows. Low lights lit a statue of the Virgin jutting from the water. The boy held her hand, soft and silent; they sat hypnotized by moth’s paper wings flickering through the Madonna’s radiant aura. Her thoughts snapped back to the dance, when the man’s grizzled chin grazed her shoulder blade; his rogue fingers wandered up her thigh.
When the song stopped, she spread the velvet curtains and floated into the haze of eyes. She smiled, remembering how they dipped their fingertips in the fountain, crossed themselves, and he led her away from Our Lady of Sorrows.
Honest Buzzard 