Short Ode to Screwball Women

On sullen nights like these when my spirit counts its woes like pearls on a string, you bring me armfuls of spare pantsuits and clear-eyed hints about the woman who might kick up her heels in them, flooding rooms with cunning, air, an almost gaudy vitality. Gaudy but sober: when your wayward husband courted the heiress, you stormed her gates disguised as a floozy—and asked the butler to serve you gingerale. It was life you’d rather be drunk on, roaring life that told you there is no time for spirits of dark staircases, only lightning ruses that not only leave no bruises but give all parties their wish: rinsed vision and second chances. Losing a boot heel and giddily claiming I was born on the side of a hill is easy. For every such moment there are ten when my ideal snags midflight, a bag caught in branches. But a girl can dream, can realize, high on heroines, that she is mortal and therefore fearless; that sanity supplies the ground bass to the wildest singing; that breezes made visible make the finest winds.