21: Boll Weevils

-poetry inspired by Jeb

First the rain: even a mist is the beginning
of erosion, a weathering of the skin.
Then, perhaps, an endless series
of petty insults, like pigeons nesting
in your hair, crapping on your alabaster
dreams. Fin de Sicle follows suit:
a revolution of the boudoir by the bourgeois:
those shoes you loved so much, discarded;
that innocent electric eyeshadow now
'a hoot'. Then the first diagnosis arrives:
your ample bust's a bust; your thighs
evince a lack of will, a breach of trust,
no faith in a future save a future
exit where the ambulances are mating:
bumper to bumper, fission-like, krill
for the grist mills of the afterlife.
Dust to dust? Hell no. Just a powder.
The intermission when your patrons
jaw down their jujubees, pronounce
you dead: the curtain ressurects
a flesh-toned corpse, in bed
and granting interviews: the governor,
the congressman, the holy roller and his
entire Roller Derby team. All grinning
for the radiologist, who snaps a picture
of the demons responsible
for your talking head:
'Boll Weevils?,'
the technician wonders,
circling each anomaly in red.

-FFMand