The Sirens
Use the hard plastic body.
The lovely vinyl head, long brunette rooted
hair in flip with possible original ribbon,
some top hair is layered but blends well.
Vintage factory cotton print dress costume copy,
still very crisp.
Red lips, with open mouth with teeth and tongue
showing.
She still has blush on backs of her hands
and on her knees.
Black side-snap shoes, walking mechanism working well.
Blue sleep eyes with painted lashes, multistroke brows,
one slightly lighter.
Tender waist, moonlit night, perfumed garlands, meat
and liquor—glances shoot an arrow through.
*
Light exists as particles, the wave state
a suggested accumulation,
distributed across probabilities of where
each particle could be.
What is it, where is it now, this sunny day?
A woman with a birthmark on her face
approaches you, asking if you speak German.
You manage, nur ein bisschen,
and she manages to convey to you
her papers have been stolen, her money.
A tourist, she says, looking dishevelled, but polite,
after every sentence, adding the German for pardon.
You know about the Mona Lisa Scam,
but the woman appears desperate.
The right thing, the Christian thing to do,
is to give her money, maybe all your money.
As if by coincidence, she allows you to see
her unique, handmade lingerie
giving proper shaping.
The birthmark seems unimportant.
Looking you directly in the eye, she produces
a gadget to photograph high voltage discharges.
She wears a retro gown.
*
The cigar thing was hot, a little non-flesh insertion.
I am not really adventurous about it,
but the Cohiba from my Cuban trip is something
I would definitely contemplate.
People collect souvenirs of their lovers all the time.
I knew a guy who carried around a fag end
I’d smoked and I never even dated him.
I have a couple of odd items like that, granted
there are no body fluids involved.
No matter how displaced we are, we are allowed
to lapse into our local accent when angry, or drunk.
The guy by the window, turning to you
slowly, saying, ‘In this together, right?’
He’s staring at a naked woman
painting her toenails at her apartment window,
and you just know
she has something to do with why no one can sleep.
*
Away from the rowdy crowd, this corner
of the bar is my own confessional. My heart
is open to penetration.
From the way I sit, sipping my scotch,
I knew you’d find me.
No smalltalk, no pickup lines:
I can see you have a story to tell, your glance
cut into a million pieces.
Maybe the one about the hitchhiking ghost,
maybe the one about the bride,
the serrated blade through her trachea.
What you saw when you were three
through the keyhole, the past, warm slices of it
making you hate who you are.
Whatever it is, you can tell me,
because my heart is open to penetration.
You’ll recognise it,
wrenching upwards, a firework of blood,
something living, the way some people
give other people roses.
*
Two inch false eyelashes, droopy, sultry,
I had to tilt my head up to look in the mirror,
then realised that without half my visual field,
driving was to be done pre-lashing.
In my acupuncture class, the guy observing—
yeah, the premeditated phrases
and can name every Star Trek character
by episode—left the room, his timer beeping
to tell him other needles were ready.
And A told me how they’d met.
He had made a big deal,
asking two women observers which male
they wanted to observe.
They both passed, not wanting to hurt his feelings.
He wrote a number on a piece of paper,
told them choose, odd or even, the other woman
chose even. He said, ‘Nope, it’s odd—guess you’re with me,
A.’
We talked about how he never listens, interrupting,
insisting I describe my bowel movements.
I was wearing the lashes with my lime green skirt.
Mostly I was happy with the look.
*
My borders are diffuse.
I am invasive.
You may say that I will be removed,
and that you will make a full recovery,
that you are better for the experience.
In this womanhood, I am the scavenger, vigilant
for barbed wire and dirty needles, beating back
the smoke of rubbish fires.
Whatever crows left on the bone, I see it,
then I show it to you.
Here is the rock I pushed uphill, the one you called treasure.
Here are the men in suits
who broke into my house and chewed at my flesh.
Here are my bare legs and pelvis,
embellished with paints, the ones used to shade
my crotch, making my vagina look five centimetres
too far to the left.
Here are my eyes,
and the colours you never got right for them.
Here are my piercings, and my seventeenth birthday,
and the wall I sit against and the cup with coins in it.
And above my head
the thought bubble you drew, full
of personal regression, and your cock sliding
inside, coming to me, full of apologies.
*
A train, more empty faces.
I am wearing my hair down today, the highlights
offset by the fake fur collar
of my black overcoat.
The guy with the Clancy novel, leaning on
the Hep C poster, glances over to the station route map,
trying to make eye contact.
I maintain my daydream face.
I can sense him looking at my mouth, my lips,
the way I keep them open just a little.
My hand is tight around the handrail.
He’s thinking,
if he gave my hand a little kiss, I’d lose my balance,
miss my stop, somehow make everything his.
Like the moment the previews have ended, the screen
is black and silent for seconds
before the film starts, in those seconds
forgetting what movie I’m seeing.
On the firing range, the paper target silhouette
comes closer. Closer.
I poke my finger through the holes the rounds made.
You know, just getting the feel of things.
*
You are beyond introductions.
You agree never to contact him
unless to meet in room 112, putting your lips, your tongue
across his veined eyelids.
In return, he agrees to reserve room 112
under his mother’s maiden name,
three days in advance of any rendezvous,
but usually a Thursday.
You agree that every sentence should begin,
If only…
You both agree never to lie to each other.
He said he would come back.
He made a promise, and you said
you’d be waiting until the world ends.
Tailing him one night, you discover
he inserts himself secretly into another’s sleep,
into the legacy of her hair colour:
dirty blonde, come,
and the stronger smell of chocolate on her breath.
*
In the queue, a woman with blue lips
whispered in my ear, can you describe this,
and I said, yes, I can, after these months
in prison queues in Leningrad
visiting my daughter,
I can describe the pain that is informed against,
and the whispers awakening from the trance.
For foreign visitors, other services:
the residence in an apartment,
the bodyguard, the interpreter, the automobile with the driver
and the escort girl
waiting, couched in a pavilion above the waves,
her time spent watching the waves,
waiting for a ransom to be accepted.
She grows old in the house at Argos,
far from her own home, busying herself
with her loom in reverence
to Apollo, the shadow of a smile crossing
the remains of her face.
*
The image of me is from the late 20th century.
The photo was taken by the doctors.
I was quite capable of getting around
walking on my hands, but the doctors
had different ideas.
I’ve been on this island so long
I barely remember what life was like before.
I see myself in a room, curtains blowing,
on the sideboard a broken ship-in-a-bottle,
insects, pigeon skull, waxed hydrangeas, twigs
and rice paper, in the ebonised oak frame
the image of me with the prosthetic devices.
I am the girl in pink cashmere.
Not long ago, the professor repaired the radio
using seaweed and oyster shells.
It was powered by bamboo bicycle, and filled the air
with scratches of static, voice fragments,
an army of ghosts.
When I first heard it, I heard it
the way the radio announces the weather, saying
sea air is wiping everything clean, the sky
is turning, and salt will stream across the sand—here,
where I am standing.
Estil Pollock | Working Title
Contents | Mudlark No. 80 (2024)