Dorothy, After

North, South, East, West—who could keep them straight? I, for one,
barely remember to pick up the dry cleaning.
Why did I think it would be a good thing to click my heels?

Football and baseball, soccer and swimming—
dates as hard to remember as witches’ names. These days,
I’m a whirlpool carpool, strong enough to lift a house, spin it around
with someone in it drinking Margaritas and set it down
in some other county, not a dry county, a county with a nice yellow brick cocktail lounge and a well-dressed businessman settled
in the corner booth. So what if the bartender is under five feet tall?

So what if the booth is shrouded by red velvet curtains? I might go right up to that man—even up to his room—and never complain
if he talked to me all night in aphorisms, but only whine when it was over and he showed me how to click my heels, told me how to get home.