The Cadaver Scandal
I.
Calcutta summers can kill with ease, but
winter is the archetypal death. They called her
Santa Maria after the street and she was
born unto sin, a creature of scruffy red hair and
molten words that bled from a silver tongue.
She's a parasite. Prometheus was wrong,
It's not fire we need.
II.
Byzantium and Xanadu are for those
who can afford dreams. Terrible heavy kindness,
them dreams, they're Prozac. I sleep in
can afford limelight. In this disguise
I shall be led to my demise. And we'll celebrate
with my silver bracelets clanking together.
III.
It's not the problem of the heroes;
but the heroines; fertility is a myth, but
I'm swollen, pregnant with it and like you I'm a
Dreamer. Let's go to the edge of the
world, my sweet, Timbuktu at nightfall. Thank
god the barbarians have been driven out; I
wouldn't want to be naught but
Eurocentric.

IV.
There's nothing really wrong with
humanity; no fatal flaws. Eschicheria
coli under my microscope, in my arms, oh quiet thunder
I shall sleep tonight in Madrid, but first
I shall find me a silvery chrysalis; it's cold outside and
I can be born again into oblivion and cheer to the
sound of weapons of mass destruction. Tomorrow
I'll be a duck, the day after metamorphose into some
gargantuan arachnid.
V.
I own the words, but I won't sleep tonight. Cry
me a river and cage me a bird, shucks, no
one understands my prose. Einstein strokes his
chin and wonders, the riders' breath on my shoulders.
Oh, precious metals are my muse; diamonds a girl's
Best friend