Chacha Marón had a black felt hat, the color of absence. She wore a smile, extra wide width, that looked as if it had recently been polished. When you looked at it, you could imagine you saw your own face. All the women loved to dance with Chacha Marón under the dizzy flicker of the glass ball. Chacha Marón would guide them with a firm hand through the hustle—ballroom dancing for the seventies. It was good to be seen dancing with Chacha Marón, best if she asked you. She never did.

Chacha Marón held a lot of women around the waist but only one woman in her heart.

"Hey, baby," she said, her voice gone throaty, as she put her hands on the hips of Cynthia Bloodworth. Then she kissed that vague place where neck becomes shoulder.

"Chacha, please. Can't you see I'm talking to Robert" (which she pronounced Row-Bear) and Dominique right now?"

The room throbbed with Grace Jones's need for male companionship.

Chacha brought out her smile.

"Her loss," she said to a few of the nearby ladies and winked. They blushed from the attention.

Then Chacha Marón put on her hat, and felt its color drain into her heart.

§ § §

Yvonne Zipter is the author of the poetry collection The Patience of Metal (runner-up, Poetry Society of America's Melville Cane Award, and a Lambda Literary Award Finalist), as well as the nonfiction books Ransacking the Closet and Diamonds Are a Dyke's Best Friend and the nationally syndicated column "Inside Out." Her poetry has been published in numerous periodicals, and now a short story in Blithe House Quarterly. She is a recipient of the Sprague-Todes Literary Award and an Illinois Arts Council Finalist Award and holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. Her current poetry collection, As If the Night Could Heal Itself, was a finalist for the May Swenson Poetry Award. She also won First Prize in the Lit Pot contest of 2003 for her flash piece "Günther's Wife." www.yvoneezipter.com

This piece was first published in Special Edition INK POT - 2004, a literary journal.