It wasn’t a hen’s night by anyone else’s standards

but we gave it a red hot shot. Pub grub and cocktails.

Three sisters heeding the call to unravel.

It’s what people did. But we weren’t just people.
Our love was lethal. Were we dressed to kill?
We ordered a Japanese Slipper, maybe a Margarita

and another on a dare just to speak its name

out loud to a man who wasn’t ours.
I’m not sure what we ate. Did we eat?
Each of us married or as good as

(though none stayed the distance —

the indefinite repetition tolled and tolled)

and as we left, that bikie curbside

not revving just watching, spare helmet in hand

as we dawdled by. As we walked on water.
Maybe we spoke. Was there a question?
Later in the vortex of tending (heads and hearts)

only one of us admitted temptation

but didn’t we all feel it just a little?

The spirit moving in us, so much like the real thing.

We called it this way and that but it was what it was

— that fleeting oh to rise and shed our replica skins.