Gloria

Peter Mladinic

Odds Against Tomorrow in heaven remade.

You thought I’d died and gone to hell for

taking Tony to bed, my fourteen year old

stepson. Keep in mind Tony’s with me.

Tony, my scandalous silk sheets lover boy.

Robert Ryan, Ed Begley and I remade Odds.

I get to do anything here. Bed a child, this

go round, I win best supporting actress, tell

the crowd a meek I’m here, not Thank you.

You didn’t ruin my career, stepson sex did.

No matter we married, no matter Tony in

2018 joined me here.  This time I ask Bob

Ryan, not What’s it like to kill, but What’s it

like to die? Me and men. The Big Heat:

Lee Marvin with a broken bottle edge

slashes my looks, I hide in a hotel room,

the light dim, Glen Ford steps in and holds

my hand. In my Odds Against Tomorrow

remake I rephrase my question to Bob

Ryan. In the original he’s racist through

and through, his foil young Harry Belafonte.

In life, Ryan was a Civil Rights marcher,

Harry and Bob the best of friends. Harry

is the one actor not in the remake.

To be in it you must be dead. Harry isn’t.

I have to laugh at how different Ryan was

in Odds from the man Ed, Harry, and I

knew off screen. As for me, I am myself.

In that scene where Bob accidentally

opens my silk robe the camera’s close up,

a low cut bra, really gets your attention.

In the remake we’ve kept it as it was,

a steamy moment, me in my womanhood,

what fourteen year old Tony Ray ogled.

Naked as Eve I took him inside me.