This is even better than that trip to Vegas
with your frat brothers–here they’ve got casinos
too, and you
You’re blowing all your cash in one go
got a daiquiri in one hand
hand grenade in the other
You feel like a cool motherfucker
despite the humid heat slicking
your skin
Got white powdered sugar round your mouth
and down the line of her back
dress unzipped, you bent her
into a crescent–you ain’t got the spine
for that yourself–
you used her, your plaything
feed money in like a slot machine ching!
and pull the lever; you
jack off tonight to bright lights and peepshows ’cause
tomorrow you’ll leave her
today you’re James fucking Bond
tomorrow you’re Ward Cleaver
But when morning comes you’ll wake
with tongue swollen
like canals drunk on storm surge,
your head drumming like a jazz funeral
the second line beat of a dirge
that comes from fists pounding through attic roofs,
from Congo Square drums
waves against the hulls of black ships
crammed with molasses and rum on the way
back from this shore
.
Tonight she’s your lover in diamonds shinin
tomorrow a cubic zirconium whore
You’ll pray forgiveness for your sins, barter
with the father for ten hail Mary’s
to one Magdalene–the lady you used up
and left, on the riverbank, for someone to carry
home and fix up again.
.
