Hollywood Forever, same cemetery as Fay Wray,
dangling like a scarf in King Kong’s hand,
has-been swans, their screen days behind them,
float at the mouth of his grave.
Backs of my thighs burn on the stone, skin recoils,
sizzles, sinks into Hamlet’s words, Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
He dropped dead at forty-four, heart attack
fake sword fighting making a movie in Spain.
Nightmare Alley was our favorite—my dad’s and mine,
saw it together on TV, he, too, had a heart attack at forty-four,
I watched him collapse on the living room floor,
Valentine’s Day, I was 14, ran down 89th Street
yelling for a doctor. I love graveyards.
Would walk Mount Auburn Cemetery
outside Harvard Square with my old college professor,
big wool coats with pockets,
sometimes we could see the moon
in the afternoon, but we never saw the stars.
I left the cold winters back east, moved to LA,
wore a two-piece under my clothes every day,
you never knew who might have a pool.
A rotting corpse is teeming with life.
Maybe Tyrone’s bones are still breathing today.
Maybe after my father’s third, final heart attack
there was a moment he remembered only the good things,
whether or not they ever happened.
I used to sunbathe on Tyrone Power’s grave,
when sunbathing was something we still did,
flowers around me, angels in bikinis smoking KOOL Lights.