Ella & Marilyn at the Mocambo
This poem won First place in the 2013 2-Day Poem Contest
(Hollywood, 1955)
It’s a mad gambit, but she knows down to the skin
the workings of allure, pulls rank
in the slope of her shoulderblades
against formica & chrome. Marilyn twirls
the flute of Dom, sleek in blond chiffon & pearls.
The neon trapeze of light’s a treat
along her jaw; the cockatiels tremble their bars,
bob into silence. There’s something
about this woman at the table down front
that knows a bit about cages. All these men
in their rococo suits, smacking of a Paris
she’ll never see, scrim of absinthe & gin fizz,
sententious post-war bonhomie. & as she feels
she’s been gazed to the vanishing point,
Ella takes the stage with that calm relish
born in a woman out of long, slow trying,
chalking up the strokes in some record book
legible only to men. & it’s a plum way
she takes the mike, looks to Marilyn
across the scrubby hecklers down front,
scats her opener in a voice all
rasped-up thankful. What they share electric
in that impossible room. I feel the freedom in my soul,
flying home at last.
Historical note: Ella Fitzgerald was unable to play the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood because she was black. In 1955, Marilyn Monroe called the club’s owner and told him that if he booked Ella, Marilyn would be at a table down front every night. When the owner agreed, true to her word, Marilyn was there every night, and so was the press.
The italicized words in the final two lines of the poem are taken from Fitzgerald’s hit song “Flying Home” (Goodman, DeLange, Hampton, and Robin, 1939).
Published online June 28 2013.
Jenna Butler is the author of three books of poetry, Seldom Seen Road (NeWest Press, 2013), Wells (University of Alberta Press, 2012), and Aphelion (NeWest Press, 2010). She teaches creative writing in Edmonton, where she will be the CAA Alberta Branch Writer in Residence in 2013/14. Butler and her husband live with three resident moose and a den of coyotes on a small organic farm in Alberta’s north country.
This poem was a winner in CV2’s annual 2-Day Poem Contest. Every April, CV2 challenges players to create a new original poem that uses all 10 words of our choosing. It’s poetry under pressure for prizes, publication, and personal bests. Learn how to sign up for the next 2-Day Poem Contest.
This piece was published in ‘The Open Issue,’ the Fall 2013 issue of CV2.
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