Jessica Hagedorn

there are some people i know whose beauty is a crime. who make you so crazy you don't know whether to throw yourself at them or kill them. which makes for permanent madness. which could be bad for you. you better be on the lookout for such circumstances. stay away from the night. they most likely lurk in corners of the room where they think they being inconspicuous but they so beautiful an aura gives them away. stay away from the day. they most likely be walking down the street when you least expect it trying to look ordinary but they so fine they break your heart by making you dream of other possibilities. stay away from crazy music. they most likely be creating it. cuz when you're that beautiful you can't help putting it out there. everyone knows how dangerous that can get. stay away from magic shows. especially those involving words. words are very tricky things. everyone knows words the most common instruments of illusion. they most likely be saying them, breathing poems so rhythmic you can't help but dance. and once you start dancing to words you might never stop.

Montana, you beat your fists against museum doors your bronze dress shimmering in the starless night. The doors are locked, Montana dreaming of snow-white mice cluttering the shelves in your kitchen, snow-white mice inside the oven, snow-white mice clogging your shiny aluminum sink, their corpses curled up like piles of fluffy cotton. Mosques are desecrated and altars overturned outside the museum's cool stone walls. Border skirmishes seen and heard in the distance, delicate bursts of poppy-red flames. The wars go on and on, invading your dreams. The mirror reflects a young man's body dangling from a rope and you gasp: "O, my brother—" The doctor finally lets you in, unlocking the door. Forbidden to touch you, he stares straight ahead, avoiding your curious glance. "You're partly Egyptian, aren't you?" The doctor inquires. You stalk the dark museum halls calling out the name of your dead lover, the name of a man unspoken since the siege of Troy. "How did you guess?" You growl, "Do you have to open graves to find girls to fall in love with?" The doctor smiles, averting his gaze from your ravaged face. He longs to trace your fish scale dress with his slender fingers. Montana scarlet shameless Montana, you stalk the dark museum halls in a rage. Ripping your satin gloves to shreds you pry open coffins; reading between the lines you decipher hieroglyphics on tombs. "Any message would do, you say, tiny jeweled tears permanently etched in the corners of your eyes. The doctor sighs, his impotence ancient as the curse that immortalizes him, the terrible secret that pursues you. Montana on the night of a full moon you are a perfumed woman in a bronze dress who shatters glass with a vengeance, searching in vain for signs and clues among the rubies and emeralds that litter museum floors. THE MUSEUM WORKS FOR SCIENCE NOT FOR LOOT, the doctor tells you. You laugh at his bandaged face, the sad, smoldering eyes— the only things visible beneath the gauze. "You can't tell the blood from the paint splashed on these walls," you say with contempt, reaching out for his arm in spite of yourself. He moves away. "I dislike being touched," he whispers, "pardon me—it's an Eastern prejudice." You never see his anguish; he won't allow it. His pride is what keeps him going. Exhausted, you lie amid the rubble. The mummy guards your body and you dream of straddling your sleeping lover's back like a dolphin you ride underwater safe within the confines of deserted museum halls.

Under a ceiling-high Christmas tree I pose in my Japanese kimono My mother hands me a Dale Evans cowgirl skirt and baby cowgirl boots Mommy and daddy split No one else is home I take some rusty scissors and cut the skirt up in little pieces (don't give me no bullshit fringe, Mama) Mommy and daddy split No one else is home I take my baby cowgirl boots and flush them down the toilet (don't hand me no bullshit fringe, Papa) I seen the Indian Fighter Too many times dug on Sitting Bull before Donald Duck In my infant dream These warriors weaved a magic spell more blessed than Tinker Bell (Kirk Douglas rubs his chin and slays Minnehaha by the campfire) Mommy and daddy split There ain't no one else home I climb a mango tree and wait for Mohawk drums (Mama—World War II is over . . . why you cryin'?) Is this San Francisco? Is this San Francisco? Is this Amerika? buy me Nestle's Crunch buy me Pepsi in a can Ladies' Home Journal and Bonanza I seen Little Joe in Tokyo I seen Little Joe in Manila I seen Laramie in Hong Kong I seen Yul Brynner in San Diego and the bloated ghost of Desi Arnaz dancing in Tijuana Rip-off synthetic ivory to send the natives back home and North Beach boredom escapes the barber shops on Kearny street where they spit out red tobacco patiently waiting in 1930s suits and in another dream I climb a mango tree and Saturday afternoon Jack Palance bazookas the krauts and the YELLOW PERIL bombs Pearl Harbor

i read your poem over and over in this landscape of women women purring on balconies overlooking the indigo sea my mother's blue taffeta dress is black as the sea she glides out my door to the beach where sleek white boats are anchored under a full, luscious moon still i am still the wind outside my window my mother's ghost evaporates in the long atlantic night i listen to the radio every chance i get for news of your city's latest disaster everything here the color of honey and sand everything there verges on catastrophe a constant preoccupation with real estate everything here a calm horizon taut bodies carefully nurtured oiled & gleaming hair & skin i read your poem over and over turning my head from prying eyes the low hum of women singing in another room i switch stations on the radio turn up the volume i almost touch the air buzzing electricity james brown "live at the apollo" the smooth female d.j. interrupts bo diddley groaning "i'm a man" it is a joke here in this baby-blue resort where art is a full-time hobby art is what everyone claims to do women sprawl like cats on each other's laps licking the salt off each other's skin and i walk in search of the portuguese fishermen who hide in the scorched trees the bleak, blond dunes that line the highway i imagine you asleep in another city i take your poem apart line by line it is a love letter we wrote each other some time ago trying in vain to pinpoint that first, easy thrill.