Lights Out

Through a puff of smoke and the discordant

notes of an amateur piano man, I watch her

sitting alone in a back corner booth,

a candle paints her face, eggshell

eyes like two dead light bulbs.

Mortality Wake Up

Lying on a sterile table, white wax paper

crinkled under my young body—

a needle buried in my wrist.

Paper Contortionist

We boys found refuge in the bamboo forest.

We cracked and snapped through yellow shoots

that pierced the earth like leafy daggers.

Concrete Crack Sutra

Down the Boulevard of wilting eucalyptus trees and tagged up bus stops, a concrete crack breathes through crab grass lips—

Each night under the siren filled lights, the sharp points of high-heeled ladies clip-clop like hooves across that crack by the dozen

The Showgirl #5

In fifth grade, the dancer was the playground princess. Boys gathered in the grass to watch her swing, while girls scowled from lunch tables. The higher she pumped, the more she wondered if she could swing over the bar. The boys said no one could do it.

Twolips

Remember how our tongues swam

like two eels playing Twister?

The Private Dance #4

She caught a man from across the room; her sticky-eyes cooed him behind the black velvet curtain. Her mind wandered as she rhythmically rocked her body on his excited lap. When

The Saints Cried with Her #3

The professional dancer went to mass on Sundays, and always tithed her ten percent. She knew all the saints by name; each had their own special prayer. When she lost her keys,

The Dance #2

On her dressing room mirror she taped a portrait of Marilyn, inscribed with one of her quotes, “The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.” When the dancer walked on stage,

The Virgin and Marilyn Monroe #1

When asked her occupation, she would say “professional dancer,” she preferred the ambiguity and it was far more respectable than “stripper.”