By Le Francis
My darling you look so lovely, you move like a star
that fell out of Orion’s throat & tumbled to knock
against the temple of the moon & we’re all obsessed —
the sky falls away, the sun nods his head, & all of earth
sways with you. Would it be yours — your breath, your music,
the way you smile when someone sings along — your spell
could build you a home & your trumpet could fill it with song.
Instead you strayed, you stumbled, you pressed against the smoke,
against the red walls of this precious club & it was lapped up
by the wind that wanted to still your throat for housing a song
you could never own. It was as if the heart of heaven had broken
& you answered it with a swing and a glint, you son of a bitch.
You pulled the bowels of the earth out of her belly & took a bite & let it
mellow on your tongue, let it spoil in your lungs, you let it poison you.
You heard the faithful speak to god & decided worship was a commodity,
you decided magic was a mirror & god wanted to glimpse his face in yours,
but the trick is in the revealing. & the card is always the thirteenth, see him
with his hobbled back & the scythe that slashes the night sky open, see him
pull infinity out of her throat & hand it to you so you can make & remake
& remix but never mirror death’s face back & call it god. It’s a ghoulish beat,
a stolen dance, a shattered pane glued together with the audacity
of a man who could have been so happy playing his own songs. Dig it darling,
the crowd swells & screams & leaves you in the grave you dug with a horn
& a half-hearted scheme. Death is a man in a suit & death waits for thee.
*This poem is inspired by “Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors” (1965)
Le Francis is the Fiction Editor of Sage Cigarettes Magazine.
