Last night at the speakeasy, my my my..
It’s like learning how to dance, but my feet don’t know the steps,
can’t keep the time- my sense of rhythm goes with my heart- it’s off
with my mystery murmur- the staccato skip a beat, a half-step to the left
a twirl, a spin and we’re off like two left-footed baboons..
Silk velvet and pressed flowers, a game of cards, a rococo frame
to place your face in with fruit-laden vines twined all around.
Plied with birthday champagne and pear cognac by smiling gents,
we danced and gabbled, discussed theology and the etiquette of grave-robbing
with the most unlikely and wonderful acquaintances..
Playing mumbley-peg with my black goat-foot letter opener
on the pitted wooden bar – a game in which confidence,
swiftness and leather kid gloves are all assets.
I think perhaps I am not cut out anymore for such debaucheries,
now that I am an old lady, I should not stay out until the sun is up
and walk home in the hazy cold morning winterlight
the effects of the cordials and merrymaking wreak havoc
on my fragile physic, and already erratic sleep-schedule..
Roasting chestnut candles fill the house with the scent of warm curry.
Now we are all working stiffs in one way or another
though 13 dollars in seven hours does little but line my poor pockets
for the moths to nestle in – the dwindling resources confound
and I wonder… It seems that we will stay here at least another year.
My feelings are mixed – fear and wonder, though it’s a comfort for some reason
to come into the grand and crumbling checkerboard foyer flickering with rainbows
and see the entire stable of bicycles crammed in together
all their riders sleeping peacefully…
I need 200 shiny gold ducats to buy my sewing machine,
can anyone spare it? I would sew you a sweet thing if so, it’s true…
New Orleans wraps in on itself, the city as moebius strip.
The spoon I bent in a fury is the same, though I’m no Uri Geller.
Telekinesis has never been my forte, unfortunately..
My super-human strength dissipated once my rage had fled,
and I could not unbend the spoon to its former use.
Strange, that.
To swim alone in a shadowy sea – I see no one
and no one sees me.
The slithery-dee, the slithery-dee..