Room-Cage #7 (draft)

Splayed thighs rising,
her dove-oven peeking
beneath her lily-pad dress

tethered in Room-Cage #7
by a delicate strap.

Three months dessicated
cigarette butts smoked
past their bloom and four

empty wine flasks tilt
against window glass
overlooking a neon sign:

(pulses) BUFF BARE GIRLS!

She settles
into the cavernous gloom-

on the unlit side of the city

a cheap plaster statue
grown into scab-garden,

a Bargain Barn madonna,
a factory mold stare...

seeing much less value
than God ever intended.

From the mouths
of raven-throated
sewer holes, her stagnant
fog dreams ascend
up the alley spine...

desperate clamber
of sinners up the ladder
of grace.

In the body of night,
skeleton steel
(fire escapes)
draw up their knees,
chatter tinhollow vibrations-

keeping time
with the rhythm

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM
of her lashed-in anger
cracked under the strain-

chest of a ship galley
whose captives row
to a resonant
city-machinery-rumble.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM

base, opiate tempo
that is her music;

forfeited and spent
like a quarter won
circus prize or

an illusion of light
on the unlit side
of the city...

from a window
in Room-Cage #7.