Ladies Who Lunch

Poem by Precious Jones

Park Ave socialites

who attended Sarah Lawrence,

Vassar, or Yale,

played tennis, had wedding

engagements announced

in the New York Times

married Harvard grads

who pledged Kappa

and come from good families,

married men who work on wall street or

in midtown investing rich people’s money,

investing their own money

These ladies are on boards

and join committees,

and give speeches, they

have fundraisers,

have their names

engraved in wall tiles at

MOMA and/or

Lincoln Center , and/or

The Metropolitan Opera House,

attend every theatre opening,

every gallery opening, they

wear pearls to brunch and

diamonds to dinner, they

eat rack of lamb,

shark fin soup.

These ladies go to auctions

At Sotheby’s and bid on

wine goblets from

18^th Century Europe

and baby Buddhas from 19^th Century Asia.

They are polyglots

They own villas in Italy ,

own islands as big as Manhattan

off the coast of some

poor South American country.

The paparazzi take their pictures,

we see them in the New York Times,

we see them in New York Magazine,

in Vogue,

in Mademoiselle

at galas, black and white affairs,

debutante balls.

They never leave Manhattan , these women,

have chauffeurs who drive them

(up and down Broadway in Lincoln

town cars with dark windows)

to the Prada store

the Coach store

Bergdorfs and Bloomingdales;

Diane Von Furstenberg and Vera Wang

Hang in their walk-in closets,

are personal friends,

they have personal shoppers

and personal assistants,

live in doorman buildings in “safe”

(that is to say rich, white) neighborhoods—

the Upper West Side ,

(and now the) West Village —

they hire Ecuadorian maids

and Trinidadian nannies.

they have tenth, twentieth, and fiftieth

wedding anniversaries

sleep alone every night while their husbands

are at the office

doing work,

doing women

These ladies never leave Manhattan , have

never been to Brooklyn ,

though their husbands own property

in Park Slope and Cobble Hill,

the only queens they know are

Elizabeth and Victoria,

Bronx is where the Yankees play,

Long Island is an iced tea,

not that they care cause they

never leave Manhattan ,

they never raise their voices,

their hemlines,

their children, they

never leave Manhattan ,

never dream in color,

never laugh at stupid jokes,

they never hug,

never kiss,

never fuck,

and never orgasm.