Double Feature

The credits are rolling,
and there is laughter,
but I do not get the joke.

A woman named Charlie
is speaking earnestly
about the boys on screen.
Her hair, an impossible red,
recalls that of someone I have known.
It falls haphazardly across
the green epaulettes of her tunic,
breathtaking in its way.

As the room begins to fade,
I am reminded of something,
but that was in another country,
and besides—

Suddenly, her lips are at my ear,
and I feel the heat of urgency
in the plosives and sibilants
of a fiercely whispered couplet:

Ghosts and demons suffer harm,
but none can touch a leprechaun.