I pictured four women on a veranda
four Southern women in straw colored hats
and gauzy dresses with lace coverd fans
They were having a conversation, and it was hot
Their hankies were tucked in cleavages
where eternal trickles of perspiration ran
from the female breast bone to exotic vacation spots
that Southern men often dream about

~~

These Southern ladies were a mixutre
of cotton candy and pink champagne,
part calico choir girl
and part satin dance hall doll

~~

They were sweet smelling, coy, cunning
voluminous, veracious, delicious
these earth sisters, these rebel mothers
they're vexing, sexy and pernicious
Women who belonged to another time
where writing a letter was by an exquisite hand
before flirting became extinct
and ladies still blushed behind their fans

~~

Like a whim of Scarlet they turned suddenly
as their conversation waned
shutting the door with the bolt of a latch
Leaving behind the longing to join them but
instead only an abandoned hankerchief
to be picked up, to savor the perfumed shadows
of these women, these Southern women