(A Xmas Story)
What a sloop she was though too fagged to dance any later through spume & hard liquor
How difficult being an angel contorting her backbone in that sleet &
those Lorelei combing her black hair
He didn't have to wonder about them those sirens screaming
Law & total abandon like Chrysler LeBarons fishtailing meantime
she crawled incredulous under their fingers across that
deep deep floor amongst the weeds she thinks
This is it this black-ice sky
breaking this
neurasthenia he sensed it too
However much she orgasmed In Excelsis
her affect seemed sad
Because if Isabella knew anything she knew God
We can merely conjecture what it must have been like to sleep on that carpet amongst those
insatiable codgers
He himself had slouched with them in that same theater their
flesh melting if you can call it that
& those teeth
They've already devoured most things they wished for more
for the crescent rocking like
Isabella nodding off earth's edge meanwhile
Johnny Xmas he wept like Jesus all afternoon
& it rained
brunette nudes named Sylvia their feathered throats warbling
power tools warbling
Ave Maria
She wasn't a real blonde she never shaved her armpits
She sweat & she sweat
God knows she dripped Pilsner & honey dribbled on burnt toast
& God felt ravenous
So every Sylvia bawled like Johnny Xmas bawled
alcoholic & flat broke
bawled buttermilk & beer & the morning news & the Methodist church & a C?section scar
& jukebox quarters
They could never express how much they wanted her they ached like avenues aching for
streetlamps but
huddled drenched in the art deco lobby hours before the movie
what could they do about it
After all they were only holly bushes infested with thrushes in somebody's backyard
a canopy for bad drunks dreaming snowdomes & Isabella's
strip-tease beyond glass
& Luke remembered dancing with her in the lonesomest bar on earth
There's 1 magnolia there & there's 1 table
& her hat awash in the tide floats
where other red stars float &
as the piano player arpeggioed Stella By Starlight he felt his spine spasm achoo &
sprout constellations
i.e. pins
His skin the skin they stretched across the black sky it was
a snare drum tattooed as she mechanical wept a Strauss waltz
My God my immense Blue Danube my
unheimlich clock she
wept for all the world like oral sex
& suddenly the barroom seemed very quiet
& very light & Xmas tree needles
were the needles every Sylvia wept
ST. JOSEPH DOWN & OUT, 2