Jessica Wickersham

America

Taxi cabs worm through

  the neon blur of a city

in its Lite-Brite masquerade,

toward a cheap motel

where a sign flickers

NO VACANCY--

quite contrary to the spirit

of its faceless pilgrims, the

glittering assholes, the 

taxidermal beauties

whose secrets sink

under scarlet wallpaper

and soil the carpet

with their bullshit.

A cheeky little harlot

with butterscotch stilts

and a cherry pout

swings open the door

of a cabaret where

the wind-up dolls

play their night games.

It's dark and still

her dead eyes hide

behind polarized moons;

mirror mirror, deja vu.

Inside, she collects a meager

tax and (securing it

beneath ripped fishnets

and bustier) begins

her sun dance seduction,

bruises, burns, and bite marks

veiled by the tangerine glow

and cigarette smoke screen.

The burlesque queen

with her Kentucky Gentleman

and mescaline dreams, 

romantic as spermicidal

lubricant and feels

about as much as

her anesthetic cream. It's 

taxing work, being 

a whore. But,

just like her faithful patrons,

she could use a decent

job.

Words To Live By

Write an ending

that'll make it big.

Like Plath's 

Number Nine.

Her cheek, porcelain

where life left,

sank in a ripple

through the oven rack.

Sandbag head shoved deep

in the charred darkness

(she always did

have a thing for 

Holocaust allusion).

She had tasted a sourness

and waited

as death

seeped

into 

her

lungs. Same with Sexton

really--

just a bigger oven.

She lay still in the garage,

tongue limp in her mouth

from death's kiss,

as the car pumped

poison into the air

and through her veins.

And Woolf,

coat pockets heavy

with stones, buried herself 

inside the cobalt

blue of a river.

Drowned in a stream

of unconsciousness

on The Voyage Out.

Suicide's

the only way for a writer

to make a living.

Old Man Hemingway

choked down 

a double barrel

and blew away his genius

in a Farewell to Arms,

crimson brilliance

splattered like a Jackson Pollock

across the wall.

Thompson too,

17 years past 50,

banged out a note

on his typewriter

and wrote himself

off with a gun.

Human fireworks.

Gonzo.

They ached for death,

but they are still

alive

and I am

still--