Milk And Chapstick

She used to be Viola, farmbred,
cornfed daughter of dirt.
Baby fat blonde jumped the nowhere
bus with a bootlace flapping, gritty
chapstick in her pocket and pasteurized
milk in her daddy's scotch thermos.
Fate est. 1977, she walked away on
rooted feet and now she

shakes a disillusioned ass at a
southbeach titty palace called
the Maraschino Cherry, screaming
red walls hung full of glaring
Warhol and Dali blacklights, polite
bouncers in business suits. The clientele
speaks of Paris, of summers spent at
Archipalego de Colon in knowing voices.
It brags like a regular Studio 54, but

it's just another downtown hard bar,
with the same coke zombies and drag queen
disciples all licking Kismet off squares of
colored cellophane, thier faces pulled in
grotesque passion. The stage pops and
snaps with faulty neon, the constant
crackle on charged air makes her think of
the spark chamber she saw once at a
county science fair, when she was still Viola,

baby fat blonde the crowds called Sapphire,
because it was spelled out behind her
on a black velvet backdrop in sputtering
tubes of violent blue. It spits static at her
bare back, bites her skin with electric teeth,
drawing sweat that smells of blood and
friction. She sways, seductive on rooted feet,
runs a dry tongue over nervous lips and thinks
of chapstick, of warm milk in a plaid thermos.