West Ambrose

Pink Funeral

Name drop: You’re on that Matthew Bourne shit again.
Addams Family with a side of Fanny and Alexander goth-pastel.
Anna Sui meets Hannibal. Hyacinth meets Hermaphrodite.
That Wes Anderson attention to detail, but make it messy.

You’re dancing in the ship-model, bottle of a mirror with no reflection.
You’re drowning with the sirens only singing about True Love.
Call your father? 1-800-U-GOT-ORPHAN.
Name your price? Nine lilacs pressed in a stopped watch-face.
(One for each circle—and in euro, please.)

The painted stars hang from the stage, faible glimmer;
weeping swans revolve around a pool of endless ripples.
One of them looks like a lover. One of them looks like Death.
(Secretly, they are both the same man. Shh, soon you will see…)

He takes you by the waist, shows you how a pas de deux feels.
This evening is for drinking your salt-rung arabesques; cul en l’air,
petit narcisse. another, another. tiny as the crease in his palms,
pirouetting ‘round his ring finger. another, another. the grasp

Changes, elongating with the moon’s sweet phases; wax, wane,
une lune noire in his touch. This shadowplay of torn wings
burns behind his back. another, another. white, black, white,
black. countertenor and pianissimo. opera seria to bellissimo.

The lights blind you as you drink his blood. Nowhere to go but
cul en l’air, petit narcisse. Iridescent, this hooded eyelid of an
oyster, the hopeless pursed lips of a star: Tell me I do not exist
anywhere but in your dream. One where we are wickedly divine.

Thunderheart, beat                                          mine can only follow,

twist the cadence, aNOther,    anothER.;    black. white. black.   The feathers
fall through slain bodies    to an afterlife.   floods of stained    petals. eternal

boyhood of Paradise.       Twine your melody                         in the strings
                   of his lyre. Plant a kiss         on the velvet timbre             of night. Listen,

for his vibrato: Dearest,
don’t worry, men like us never
                                       make it to curtain-call
                                             without dying twice.

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West Ambrose is a scrivener and performing artist. Check out his art-works at westofcanon.com. If you want anything published in The HLK Quarterly or The Crow’s Nest, just ring for the masthead, and let them know.