End of Side A

It ends because the beginning won’t jumpstart again: red smudge of a mouth, lipstick everywhere the afterthought a comet leaves on its way out. What makes this moment unfold like a fine woman raising herself up from the bathroom floor? Honky-tonk in the honeyed brown of an eyeball? Perfume & its circus of heart-shaped introductions? It ends because the needle always winds up in the lead-out, like a man pawing around for broken spectacles after he wakes in the world’s rubble. Hand over hand he paws, through stilted guitar picks & abandoned stilettos, raised skirts & rocks, glasses as chipped & smudged as the topography of a skipping record. He could be Albright himself, foraging the still-life swish of low-rise tutus & skyscrapers cracked in the twisted aftermath of a smile. Even without glasses, he remembers her in high style: magnanimously coming down the blue & violet threads of night, her green dress clashing with the bathroom tile.