She simply rolls her eyes and shakes her head
If, on one those rare occasions she is socializing
With social as opposed to business acquaintances
(Daylight hours with single women,
Naturally of a certain laissez-faire outlook as to certain businesses)
Someone brings up the notion of the ****** with the heart of gold;
You do not, speaking in a voice
Residing in the interval
Between a purr and a growl,
Get into the game for the purpose of ministry.
Indeed, she will note
Half-jokingly, half-ruefully,
That the major difference between her job a
And those working the third shift
At the Kendall refinery was the differing nuances
In future health-related consequences.

She is, for a businesswoman,
Possessed of a significant number of quirks,
Having no interest whatsovever
In the abnormal or unduly physically challenging,
Despite the higher potential renumeration
(Honey, you’ll never have enough money for that,
She will demur if the horse-trading turns to such specialty items)
Nor will she engage in congress or commerce
With the upper- management types
From the city’s few prosperous terms
(For reasons she will not nor likely cannot explain)
And she is notably fond,
Possibly to the point of lunacy,
Of lacing her small talk
With scripture and bon mots;  
Indeed, one wall of the men’s room at the Zippo factory
Is devoted solely to various quotes and scraps of verse
She has uttered to her patrons
Who punch the clock at the plant,
And more than one of the boys has said
She’s a pretty **** good piece, even at her age,
But sometimes you wish to Christ
She’d just lay there and be quiet.

It was not impossible that she could have taken another direction,
0r, at least, worked her chosen field on a slightly different plane;
She had been, in her prime, quite stunning
And in possession of both a quick wit and certain presence
That would have nicely augmented the arm
Of those who lived in the rarified strata
(Or at least as high-falutin
As one can be in a small oil-boom town)
Who possessed a combination of money, prestige,
And the inside knowledge that rules and sacred vows
Applied only to sheep and losers.
She chose (a clear and conscious choice, no doubt as to that)
To cast her lot with a humbler set;
The foreman, the mechanic, the assembler on the line
The stooped and gentle florist
Whose sole payment to her was a lifetime of free arrangements
From his small store on Bon Air Avenue
(I tried to lock him into
The floral tribute at my funeral, she once said,
But he seemed to think that would be inappropriate.)

No one, even those in her very small circle of friends,
Seemed to know why she had spurned
The easier road of the demi-acceptable courtesan;
She had given no indication that she saw herself
As some slightly tarnished saint,
One of those so-called angels with ***** faces
(Indeed, she had often made a point of saying
There was no good to be done in her particular line of work),
And she was not forthcoming about her curriculum vitae,
Although it was common knowledge
She was raised a strict Catholic,
And it was said she had a brother
Who was in the care of the state,
Though it was an open question  
As to whether that was in the medium security pen at Foster Brook
Or the bughouse in Kane.  
In any case, as she was want to say
A ***** is the last person you ask
To find the answers to the mysteries of the universe,
After which she would launch
Into a story about how Father Mulligan,
The blustery, movie-Irish priest of her youth,
Was known to be the absolute biggest cheater
To ever set a pair of spikes
Onto the greens at the Bradford Country Club,
Or how the gangster Legs Diamond,
Who would just as soon shoot you as to look at you,
Was known to be the most generous tipper
Ever to patronize the once-grand hotel in Albany
Where her maiden aunt had been,
Once upon a time, a cocktail waitress.