Heaven

                                        Chiffon, sequins,
Lace and fur—her mother’s sentimental Cher
wardrobe; paisley oozing off slouching
caster clothes rail, half-lit halo,
subterranean corona,
                                        stool-less bar clad in brass
and mirror. Knotted fish net web, colossal,
suspended kitty corner, cockeyed. Brother’s
pre-pubescent relic on the counter: Castle
Greyskull capsized. Those humid nights

Bobby Cherry crept to the window late
hissing steam onto the pane: come out. come out.
We quivered on the dank step as black head
smoked and swore and spat and lied.

                                        Her 13th birthday came:
Spin the Bottle, Truth or Dare, Seven Minutes
in Heaven. Heaven, the closet under the stairs.
Heaven: opaque, inky, grubby outgrown ski
jacket shroud. The lure and the pallor…

An undulating, capitulating compass. Her dad’s Goodbye
Yellow Brick Road. Till my eyes smarted. Don’t
pick me—my heart, an armadillo rolled. Friends’
still cherubim faces flushed with

                                        show me your dick head.
Lick the light switch. A form of semaphore.
Dusty rays pawed the parlour. The cloud hung
low in the valley of my lungs; fog blots out the
defining line between sky and shore.