Red Doorway, Red World

It wasn’t my exit but I got off anyway,
a detour from the most direct route.
I stopped for a red light under the expressway
in a factory district deserted at night,
except for that lady
with red shorts, red wig, red lips, rouged cheeks,
and flushed breasts straining against a red halter.
She leaned against the proverbial lamppost,
and eyed me like a hungry lioness eyes a gazelle.
I waited, supposedly, for the light to turn green.
She waited. I waited. She waited.
In a dark doorway up ahead one burning cigarette
and a glowing ash that lit the ground,
two points of light in a shadowy everywhere,
shades of red brighter than a dying red-giant star.

-- Richard Fein