Tulipe Noir: As the Cosmic Hand Reaches for the Light

Like a tarantula at a square dance, I felt unwelcome.
Like a memory hanging off a bridge, precarious.
This week has the breath of a six-day’s dead wino
This town isn’t big enough for this brand of make-believer.
I felt as gold and as rusty as the sweat-corroded trinkets
on bellydancer’s waist. I drank from the flask
You’re no sunset, Dollface. You’re Sunset after hours.
a dark Merlot. I said harmony and you heard harming me
and there we had the way to go, Pigeon. This city’s seen
the last of you, gumshoe. The stars were like dewdrops
on the side of a windshield of a car left for dead
on the shoulder. The body in the trunk was as folded tidy
as a suitcase packed by a new bride. We wore blue velvet
and shiny loafers. We wore carnations in our buttonholes
like bulletholes blooming from the sides of our chests.
We were not big enough for this town, for both of us.
We’re as gone as vaudeville, as late as ever, as unwieldy
as a fish half-caught, as lost as us.