by Grace Bauer

This time we’re in a city—
the Big Apple, let’s say, or some other metropolis
so brightly lit the sky loses all memory
of stars—except maybe the kind you might spot
getting out of a taxi or into a limo in front
of some swank hotel. Tonight, Ms. S
could be one of them in her little black something
so tight it’s almost nothing, almost skin, almost sin,
or the temptation to commit one. She loves
the slippery slope of social lubrication, glows
with the possibility of a room packed with bodies
pumped by music and an urge to be part of
this thing called crowd. It’s a sense of belonging
that goes beyond the group of friends she came with,
embraces every stranger who tilts their head
or waves a hand in animated small talk.
Ms. S feels her heart flood with a kind of affection
for the lot of them, the shaky enterprise of connection.
If she wanted, she knows she could find someone here
to spend the night with, but it’s the night
itself she decides she most desires.
She slips out the door—past the drinkers, the dancers,
the bouncers, the smokers huddled in a cloud
near the door, lets the music of the streets pull her forward—
block by block, with no place to arrive beyond motion.
Block after block: the steady whir
of traffic, the tap of her high heels on concrete,
the Are you kidding me’s? or then his boss said’s
of intermittent passersby, the occasional honk of horn.
Another block. And then a corner she turns—and suddenly
the moon is hanging bright as a disco ball between
two towering buildings. Full faced and shimmering.
Ms. S halts as if an invisible hand had grabbed her
at the nape. The upswept ‘do she’d secured with pins
and product shags around her shoulders, the fine hairs
on her arms thicken into pelt and the manicured nails
on her fingers and toes sharpen and curl into claws. She feels herself
coming alive inside the midnight of her body, the wilderness
of this city she claims as her turf. From far off,
she hears—is that a siren? Or an urgent call
from some pack that is beckoning her home?
What rises in her throat is beyond thought or language:
the wild that she is: calling back.

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Grace Bauer has published six collections of poems—most recently, Unholy Heart: New and Selected Poems (University of Nebraska/Backwaters Press, 2021). She is also co-editor of the anthology, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse. Her poems, essays, and stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals.