It’s the hush of the week         done in a few days
           or the rib of my life      velvet-lined hearsay
from cursing the girls’ home in pearls
                                                           to a hot iron, cigarettes, black dresses.
           I try to be done or alone
                       burning red flags          mourning time
on the white blow-up hobby horse       my truth seems literal.
           I curse and shush you holding a skull
and thinking of France            but my thought is I take
           evil and keep it            my face a strange mix or Garbo and Lombard
                       touch here to hear my husky singing
                       touch here to see trash   my diseased hysterectomy
and I can’t be crazy because nothing sticks.

           Does the honeymoon wax and wane in the swamp?
It did while you were away. I fingered myself there
           in red silk pajamas        rain coming through keyholes.
                       You say I was made for the stage
                                  but here at the drugstore I’m pale and sleepy
                       tonguing a malt in white ermine       cold spoons and a crocodile smile
my vanity sleeps where they’ll never take down the tinsel nativity scene

           and it’s a shame to sell myself for sex
           and smell like a fish
           and not tell you anything
and you looked so good scaling Viennese rooftops
           eavesdropping every day          with internal bleeding
leaving me a ruby crescent moon and taut roses.

Someday I’ll die, a closed circuit in a dark slip holding the phone
           and I’ll know more about how
           the studio worked than any cowboy
           but today it makes me happy to eat
                      even if I eat wrong
           and I resent my bedtime
                      a dovetail, a closet, two seconals.

Note: This poem engages in part with the life, work, and words of Tallulah Bankhead.

I thought it was hope
           but it was just heat      lack of health      a bad smell
                      a flapper handclap
and if we keep talking     we’ll never slide down the fire escape.
           Eight years seems an eternity in the making
                      and I am completely unable
and I’ve lost my voice     or this is my voice now
           or I’m smearing pink gel on my face
and you are my consequence   and so are the summer-end locusts
           and I’m reading the beachcomber book just to sleep.
I’m all leveled out       my ovary sore from the orgy
           or the ghost of our bouncing
white-laced demon baby
           serving our fate with orange blossom drinks on a tray
           and I want to leave early but circus parties
keep rolling     and I want to get through
           in a pale blue dress
a red hood and perhaps          some fast-talking screwball
           a closer walk with my just-washed hair
a red roadster
                      I guess. I want to keep going through it
half-forcing my sickness         into smooth-glittery sleeves.
           Maybe if I lived in a sunny apartment
I’d get up early           you’d come to see me
           maybe if they found my corpse on the beach.

I’m already missing     our ragged monogamy
           how my long hair masqueraded as a bob.
I’m already chewing berries as the dashboard clock stops moving.
I’m already paying to take sex away
           and gulp pills outside the mini-mart
or I’m already hiding in humid woods
           from your cock and my promise
your lecture     my amnesia
           our taking our time
and I break the bourbon bottle
           against the retaining wall
           and pull a wine-stained ribbon     out of my mouth
and keep pulling the ribbon
and how there was a way
           to keep the gold stick-on earrings
on my pear-shaped lobes for days
           and fear feathery lashes
and turn my neck green with cheap herringbone chains
           and there was a way to trade barbs
and soak our gooey fingers in brine
           and I’m sorry I was a sad sort
my paisley frock skin-tight against painted wood
           in the primitive studio moonlight.