Parked near the corner of

Cottage and Allen

silence comes like

a tidal wave

there is glass

in my boots I wonder

who I am

pastiche of blood

and swollen eyes

throbbing

in the

rearview mirror

cuts on these hands

they must be mine

faces gather

under the orange glare

of streetlights

hands reach out

pointing live

local late breaking

pay per view

love

the word

shot in a vein

spilling silveryblue

blood on the

sidewalk before it

reaches

the heart

—the thought

dragging wings

down some secret

alley

stars

dropping

scattered in

the street

abandoned, bleeping

from sad puddles under

an empty sky

image flickering

silent

forgetting

who I am

who sees Ymalla blazon

from the backdoor kitchen

Yumalla

who loves his mother

and wears a white apron

who in the wide-screen vision of

the world slays the dragon

with his shining fist

not knowing me

or ever knowing me

because I no longer am

I’ve disappeared from this

fairytale

disappeared from this

screen

Change came to me in the form of a snake, bearing apples.

I said, “Aha, Mr. Snake. The laws of entropy are well known by now. Change equals loss, you know.” The snake just stuck out a glittering tongue, childish, impolite. “Surely, Mr. Snake, you understand my needs. I have only one soul, I must keep it whole.”

Then the snake rolled over in the grass, to show me the pictures on each of its scales: thousands of scenes of evil and beauty unlike anything in myself.

Accounts of this got it all wrong. First of all, Uriah the Hittite is alive and well and working as an auto mechanic at Frank’s Parts-n-Service. I divorced him last year, and it had nothing to do with King David. Second, King David and I never had an affair, much less a second marriage. I don’t deny that he loved me first—and maybe last—for my beauty. But people take such a narrow view.

Beauty is more than physical. Nothing made the King happier than to sit on my patio talking, drinking Kir Royale, just talking.