In mundane action
days go by unnoticed,
the clock beats time
and birds fly southward bound.

Night falls red,
and bars fill up —
their neon lights are blinking,
strangers touch and lust in Scotch.
So red-eyed, the bartender pours another whiskey,
and customers make vapid music
while sipping silent shots.

She swings her leg seductively,
as she turns her bemused stare toward him.
Boring-eyed she laughs a sultry provocation,
her throaty voice far-reaching,
echoing in the sordid gloom
of barroom dust…

Sensuously she smooths
a copy of some novel,
while this feline goddess crooks her ear
to those murmurs that say nothing,
invitations to a darkness filled with sin.

So she twists her neck
that swan undaunted,
soothing his flattered ego,
though her eyes lead elsewhere
dream unbound…

And as she fingers her possession,
lovingly caressing that worn-out fiction,
her novel tumbles mutely to the floor,
yet she smiles
             the sadness of the red room luster,
             the evening dawn of decadence and lust.

Ana M. Fores Tamayo advocates for marginalized refugee families from Mexico and Central America. Her labor has eased her own sense of displacement, being a child refugee, always trying to find home. In parallel, poetry is her escape: She has published in Acentos Review, The Raving Press, Indolent Books, the Laurel Review, and many other anthologies and journals. Her poetry in translation with its accompanying photography has been exhibited in art fairs and galleries as well.