1940, Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, USA — Original caption: Joan Crawford relaxes near the swimming pool of her lovely Brentwood Heights home. — Image by © Underwood & Underwood/Corbis
I walk to the pool party I wasn’t invited to; Greta Garbo is there, talking to a script writer that was blacklisted; she is spooning chocolate pudding into his mouth and laughing uproariously; he looks uncomfortable but also like he needs the pudding; this pleases me though it is terribly hot out but no one is in the pool; Joan Crawford is passing a cocktail to Myrna Loy who rolls her eyes under a sunhat while Spencer Tracy hands me a robe; I feel his depression through the terry cloth and they all look at me expectantly like I am the savior of their union, their list maker, their dream planner, their landscaper who lost topiary shears in the wrong neighborhood; now Clark Cable puts a palm on my waist, so we are basically, engaged, but I want to be wooed by these haircuts and teeth; my tap dance starts slow but I build momentum: I wear a bowler hat, grow a cane out from my wrist, I instantly grow a Charlie Chaplin mustache— it’s real on me, when I say tap dance I mean my rousing speech and when I say rousing speech I mean I lay down on a lounge chair to take a nap; I’ve been drugged by glamour: let someone else manage this nuthouse.
Jennifer MacBain-Stephens went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and currently lives in the DC area with her family. She is the author of six chapbooks. The most recent ones are forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press, Crisis Chronicles Press and Shirt Pocket Press. Her first full length poetry collection is forthcoming from Lucky Bastard Press. Recent work can be seen / is forthcoming at, Pretty Owl Poetry, Yes, Poetry, Gargoyle Magazine, Jet Fuel Review, Glittermob, The Norfolk Review, Moss Trill, Pith, So to Speak, Apple Valley Review, Otis Nebula, Freezeray, and Hobart. For more, visit: http://jennifermacbainstephens.wordpress.com/.
