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51 Propertius at the moonlight lounge and Patio The waitress brings my third martini out on a shaky tray, Blonde curl of lemon in the silver gin. Halfway through October, And already the air’s so cool it pops her nipples up Like the little gadget on a turkey breast that tells you It’s Thanksgiving, folks, time to gorge yourselves on gratitude. And for what should I feel grateful tonight? The paper lanterns Swell over me like stars on steroids, pale pinks and creams. Everywhere I look, the season’s slipped from ripe to rot. Even Cynthia, my angel of temptation from the darker side of heaven, Now goes by Cindy, she who used to shower in her pearls. What I get from her these days are cranky rants and cold kisses, Dates broken an hour before they’re due, a kind of buzzard love That gnaws my heart, half dead from all the beatings it gives itself. Lately, I hesitate in front of her. Should I let my hair down, Or my pants? My life’s a Miranda warning: Anything I say May be used against me. Ah, Cindy, my abbreviated dear, Lady of the wayward fables, dizzy mistress of my vertigo! And why should I count on her consoling tongue for peace? All over the world, harebrained angers outfox the diplomats. History has its foot in the door and won’t take no for an answer. Over a bloat of disposable soldiers, cross and crescent Duke it out in the bloody sand, where any fool would give up His God for a mouthful of foul water. I wouldn’t mind An alien invasion from some stump of the universe beyond The telescopes, ugly mugs with a bit of extra in the knowhow, Enough to knock the wobbly axis of this planet back to balance. Closer to home, I’ve had my share of greedy healers, Bishops of the soft glove and the hard staff, and all those Entrepreneurs of the pulpit in their grins and bespoke suits, Conspiring with the pieties until I’m ready to baptize myself In the Church of Exasperated Jesus, no money down, no guarantees. On the Moonlight patio, dahlias tied to the tall stakes Lean and sprawl and shake their spiky heads. I’m drinking 52 A new gin that smells of cucumber and rose petals, with an olive Pierced through the gizzard by a plastic sword. And I know How that feels: we’re all martyrs to someone else’s pleasure. My Cindy, my rawboned darling, aloft in her skyscraper heels, The sort of woman who could wear a rattlesnake as a necklace, Always gives me fresh reasons to be hurt, as if a queen Had made me Grand Panjandrum in the Order of the Hindmost. But I’m still not crippled by some telethon disease, and every dream Is not a worst case scenario. I haven’t been run to ground By the bluenose bloodhounds of empire, or been appointed Asshole in charge of patriotic felonies on the sly Potomac. My lines Keep to themselves, civilians in the tribal snarl, though they sing Against the grain while the lights flicker and the sweat drips. Oh Cindy, my Darwinian proof, I’m no better than my betters, As coarse as pope jokes and Jew riddles at the corner bar. I wish I could peel a word like a peach and let the juice Sluice out as Casanova did, that devious Venetian sleek in love. But this century’s too full of insults and velocity, too many Fidgets and collisions for a solo on the midriff, a riff on the soul. Should I defer to the future, or take this rusty wreck of myself To the Heart Repair Shop? They can clean the parts in alcohol And put them back together with steel screws, and I’ll still be Neither freak nor hero, even if my blood runs the wrong way, And my mind’s fucked up, and I can’t tell right from ruin. ...

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