Between Acts

Her new lover had money
and twenty more years than she.
Her hair was the yellow
of every happy ending,
eyes blue as a January sky.

We picked one night at cranberry bread
that Nancy made, crumbly and dry.
She liked it that way she said,
by way of self-defense. We ate
because it reminded us of something better,
the way dreams remind us of when we were young.

He bought her Prada shoes, Margaret said.
I don't know what to think, it isn't how we live.
We didn't say it's how her daughter lives
now, at twenty-two
with her streetlight hair and police car eyes.

We could wear Prada shoes to the co-op
or the Town Hall, we decided,
with our old jeans and our Bean coats.