I want to say his name
started with a “B,” but really,
who knows? The walls
were pulsating with sound,
all senses slanted as one.
He told me I looked like Madonna—
singer, not saint, and I laughed
at the improbability. Still,
I wanted to believe him there
in the dim strobed scratched club
as model pterodactyls circled overhead.
Maybe that’s why I let him kiss me
again and again, submerged in a world
of antediluvian zeal, watching the dancers
rise and fall, turn and turn across the floor,
see their evolutions in this beer sodden
Eden. Who was I to question the way
these things happen, the way someone
looks at us and sees a Madonna?
Madonna of the Pterodactyl Club
Nadine Ellsworth-Moran lives in Georgia where she works in full-time ministry while pursuing her love of writing. She is fascinated by the stories unfolding all around her and seeks to bring everyone into conversation around a common table. Her essays and poems have appeared in Interpretation, Structo The Presbyterian Outlook, Emrys, Kakalak, and Saint Katherine Review, among others. She hopes to continue listening closely and writing about the shared experience of life in these times, with particular interest in the joys and struggles of coming to understand the history, identity, faith, and culture of the modern South.