Betty Davis

FRED ASTAIRE AND BETTY DAVIS

When you show up at a bar fight
In uniform and wearing lipstick
It sends a mixed message
It’s like having a Barbie doll dressed in fatigues come to your house
I mean what would you expect her to do?
Wink at you?

So he took a swing at me.
And Oh My God, I realized we were fighting by moonlight
I thought, now he didn’t wake up this morning
Picturing himself fighting a lady cop
That beyond anything else, didn’t he just want to meet a
Nice girl and give her a pretty flower
Sure, I was a nice girl, but he wasn’t my type.

He must have loved to dance too. He had on the most
Beautiful blue cowboy boots
That he kept trying to show me.
He was built like Fred Astaire, thin
A tapered waist
Well, maybe this was his way of asking me to dance.
So we danced for a good ten minutes.

Up and down the sidewalk in and around the azalea bushes.
We did the side step, the two step
And he dipped me a few times.
Heck, I think we dipped each other. At one point he reached for some
Nearby azaleas.
And some of them ended up in my hair.
He stood me up in court the next day and I never saw him again
But My God, moonlight and love songs are never out of
Date.

—from Rattle #37, Summer 2012
Tribute to Law Enforcement Poets