Collection

cashmere swirls over worn faille and madras and taffeta float chests spill over with second-hand satin and hats top the bedposts all this - her raiment for a life she isn't living - finery for places she doesn't visit all of it - draping a room she didn't plan to inhabit

saturdays, near sundown the Quarter ignites, and the bars smoulder on Bourbon... Artiste works in what she sleeps - a sheet, with a bit more to make it seem less - but on early Sunday morning on spring and sunny mornings she wears a heavy green robe and pulls the sash tightly - a massive knot on this day of rest

hostage of habit she wears it all day sips cafe au lait until her tongue is chicory dark and can't taste anymore she leans on the broad frame of a hole - two centuries now a window - she rests, folds arms... lazy ears receive the prayers and murmurs of Mammas wafting in with the heat

racoon-eyed she sees her Drunk walking up-street against the masses whom she throws a daily five to then, she draws back elbows and eyes Artiste covers closely her full breast with green and under the white-hot sky in a pillow of humid curls she dozes in a future that's easy

(hope the hole - two centuries now a window - is still there)