Ignore the crack in rhythm, the mangled lyrics,
my face stunned under sticky layers of cinnamon
and rose. I drew the woman you wanted. I spritzed
Chanel in my throat shadows and in a line inside
my thighs to my knees. I shaved landscapes,
shunned underwear, colored my nails bitterly red.
And then, just ten minutes to show,
I studied my angles of craving.
I will hoist myself up onto the ancient Steinway,
drag a blue feather boa along the gleam, tilt my head,
and separate the limelight into merely a million angels.
When I was 16, my hips moved like they had water in them.
When I was 22, men in patent clickers and sharkskin suits
couldn’t say my name without weeping. I sang them to sleep,
then left. By 30, I had set fire to the names of two husbands.
Everything I crooned was pissed and indigo. Now I’m warbling
beneath a shifting layer of 40, bound to a sad stash of ballads
anyone with a steady tongue and half a dream could sing.
There’s my half a dream over there, barely recognizable
as you, slumped in your seat at a quarter to leaving,
not knowing or caring if I ever got around to that song
you asked for with a wink, a single sweaty dollar.
You wanted to hear “My Romance,” which I sang
like any more breathing I planned to do depended on it.
I cooed, flirted, and crawled my whole self into every note,
and when I came up for air, I knew you hadn’t heard it.
I was backdrop, I was time passing, I was hey somebody
get me one more whiskey, I was did the rain start yet,
I was bet those tits aren’t real, I was wish she was younger,
I was at least the piano player’s decent, I was damned
drinks are watered down, I was I can’t believe I blew
this much cash, I was bet she was hot 20 years ago,
I was where’s the john?, I was damn she blew that note,
I was should I wait around?, I was fuck, it’s all the same
in the dark, I was hope this old piece a’ ass is worth it,
I was is she ever gonna stop singing?, I was oh yeah
feelin’ that Chivas, I was did she ever sing that song,
whatever the hell it was, that sappy shit I paid her to sing?
There’s a back door to this place. I use it sometimes.
But first I have to face the dressing room’s endless mirrors,
where the wronged songstress sees herself repeated,
where I scrub off four layers of sweetened skin,
ease folded toes out of tortuous pumps, and pray away
the broad ache in my throat. There’s a tap on the door
and I think maybe it’s the manager with my cash
or this week’s excuse for not having my cash. But it’s you,
rumpled and bleary, dangerous because you’ve peeked
my dreaming, because you are the lie I’ve decided to hear.
You want the whole heart of the millionth angel.
Cue the woo of surrender, the sloppy fuck with soundtrack.