THEDA BARA DOLLHOUSE DOUBLECROSS
If you think something new every day
you will notice an intertitle change
but I let madcap go like a rat
and my mind’s always sewer gas
pink pig and the hi-fi won’t restart again.
The baby throws up on the shag carpet
and screams about her throat
and really I’m just trying to protect my interests
play side A over and over.
I paint my nails for my beast and/or for myself.
I just write these basement mini-furniture scenes
like I’m touring the Hollywood mansions
but down here the old pull-out couch smells like a dog
and down here is the cracked mirror halltree
and down here is the seafoam green plastic play makeup case
and down here I fall/cut my head on the table
and my cousin sticks his tongue down my throat like an asp
while upstairs my aunt sews my Cleopatra costume.
HOMME FATALE 1
When I was nothing but a drunk and a slut
a jointed doll since Halloween
black panties painted on
witch flames over everything
but how did this month let go already?
We write down useless lines sick, sick like a movie
wait for our memories
this beauty dependent on red cheeks and full snowsuits.
If I could separate the process from the watering hole
from when they hung me from a meathook
in the spider-colored silence
the weather vane spins green ink on my nipple
as the screen loads
the cats have beany kidneys.
I pose in front of the mirror
in my minty faux fur
in my idiosyncrasies
can’t not have sex with myself.
Today could be my birthday but I don’t really know
I wait for heavy snow to impose a persona
and the unkempt yards make it hard
to go home again
but you assume the haunted house really happened
that it was the utmost
that men chased us with chainsaws
once they got paid
that they yelled out our names
and also sold lacy gold frames
with all of my school pictures in them.
HOMME FATALE 2
It’s the pig-slaughter death-press
the highwayman rescue stuff.
It’s all soapy melodrama.
I swear once I take this tablet
I will stop writing.
Blonde and sad skeleton
I walk past bat houses
strum coffin-nail songs
try to work up an appetite.
Never younger than now
I straddle two worlds of folly
deathmobile candy red.
It was the Dari-Owl Hex once
now a white cat shows itself out of nowhere
now I just laugh at the guilt
as the silky-dressed women hunt for his body
and the famous artists make life-sized
owl and pussycat puppets, photograph them for the children.
You say I was thinking of empathy
but really I was throwing his body into the lagoon
my mink rich with his money.
NOVELETTE SOLSTICE
Every year it’s the same song of the shrinking deer
and the sunset in the holler
and the ghost of the cat woman’s hand on my palm
and the UPS man stumbles back to his truck
he’s so narrative. I hate him/forgive him
since what can you do
the camp knife’s coming on
dry food the calories sweet buns
and the Santa Lucia doll’s
white smock and ribbon as red as my blood.
The chickens must have been poisoned.
a whole brood of them
on the glitter mystery of the Xmas card.
The cow looks across the lake sadly.
We paint a flame on her stomach
and I hate myself for being so limited.
To live or die is competitive.
We light red candles for our suicide
roll our silk pajamas
in frankincense and lavender
watch Bob Montgomery solve the mystery
over again his daughter a witch
and we deck our horsehead with little silver bones
and the we is somewhere in my sore ovary
the we is a baby who likes when you cluck
and I don’t want to come home.
I’m working on dirt
and a female intelligence
who buys up all the sweatshirts
with sex and spiderwebs on them
and takes a lot of pills
and sinks in the sleeping bag
in front of her childhood closet like it’s quicksand.
HEY WINTER
It’s cognitive dissonance getting me up and getting me in
or it’s hurt thirst
or it’s predicative text but I’m not happy with gaudy
and you’ve wasted your life must be an understatement.
I notice soft birds and my head.
I buy dolls that look like me
cover them up with unpaid bills on the table
twitch my nose/try to pay them.
I don’t play the record I don’t even walk over
to the record player.
I can’t fathom heavy lifting
a thrifty lady watching late night home shopping
strung with cubic zirconia.
What can I say I am besides ego?
What is this metaphor a crackling medical drama?
I take a bite and wear a striped shirt.
I don’t trust my own judgment
and all the predators live in my dreams.
Heavy ego, last winter I was Jayne Mansfield
pearly nails and vague pregnancies
promises, promises, eyelash sweater premonitions
hairy legs and I’m only half kidding.
Your songs are sad but I love your music
I love your headspace
and I guess I got hungry.
I guess I’m cooped up like a zombie already.
What will this winter bring?
I go outside to stare at the deer.
Its jade-green reflection
spans my unhappy face.