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Poetry of Issue 9: Would You Like to Come in for a Drink?

Would You Like to Come in for a Drink?

Ingrid Bergman (Anna) asks Cary Grant (Philip)

at the door to her London digs

in the 1958 film, Indiscreet,

after a convivial evening of conversation and wine.

It’s a pivotal moment; Philip says yes.

 

This seems like a memory to me,

but I can’t quite pinpoint it.

 

Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?

Would you like to come in for a beer?

Would you like to come in?

 

Cross the threshold;

the vampire invited in;

no stopping him now.

 

Step over the doorstep.

I want to know you better.

 

Was I in college?

When I worked at the university?

When I had that job downtown?

 

Did it really happen to me?

Or was it something I read in a novel?

A movie I saw? A TV show?

Something a friend told me?

 

Had I assumed I’d been invited in

for different reasons than she really had?

 

Does this mean what I think it does?

Charles Rammelkamp

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