Birthmarks
Hiss
Can’t recall the time of year, but the cars I could hear seemed to slowly steer like they were driving on frozen roads. Couldn’t say the time of day, but the light through the shades rearranged her face into valleys and peaks of gold. Don’t remember what she wore ‘cause she stripped at the door. Said, “Our clothes look better thrown on the floor, now that we’re alone.” Never even heard her name, but the sound that remains is a mix of moans with the hiss of rain on the patio. I touched her shaky thighs, all love-bite bruised, as she sprayed her perfume. Said, “You think it’s strange that I’m kind to you?” I said, “I kinda do.”
She said, “There’s just so much cruelty in everything everywhere. When I close my eyes against it, I still feel it in the air. But when I’m in your arms, I could swear it wasn’t there.”
Never asked her where she’s from, but she spoke about love with the lilting tones of some foreign tongue I didn’t know. The smell of artificial fruit made me think of the maids who would clean the place once we left the room. Told her, “Time to go.” She said, “I’m staying for a day or two." Then she whispered, “You brute. Oh, you drunken fool, don’t you try to move. I’ll take care of you.”
Then I snapped a photo of her smiling naked on the bed. Hand posed for the camera like a pistol to her head. Cardinals on the sheets, flying always to the West.
Dropped the picture in my suitcase and got up to leave. Then I mimicked the expression on her face as I covered it with sheets. Dark lines from the shades put all the cardinals in their cage. Shut the door behind me, flipped the sign, and I was free.
Letters from Sing Sing
I swore, there’s no violence in my heart, but some priors with firearms gave the judge enough proof to rule killing your man’s no fluke. My left eye hid behind its lid while the glass one was staring into the endless midnight of life locked away from you. So I begged him to—
Plug me in and hit the switch. Strike me with lighting. I’ll wear my dancing boots of polished python skin and kick till she’s smiling. If killing’s what I did, killed’s what I should get.
Elena, you believe this place? It’s called Sing Sing, but there ain’t no karaoke. The guys get shy around spotlights. But if the state’s swayed by my case to resurrect the death house days and dust off Old Sparky, you’ll see how bright this songbird fries. We’ll harmonize when the—
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Plug me in and hit the switch. Strike me with lighting. I want to hear you laugh like a little kid through the crackling wires. It’ll sting a bit when the show begins and my blood’s ignited. But if we’re reunited, baby I wont mind it.
Women want to send me photos. I tell them how to pose. Tape them up in my locker with halos of paint-pen gold. In sleep, I climb their bodies in a steep, writhing heap. At the top you kneel before me howling like a preacher’s dog in heat.
Plug me in and hit the switch. Smite me with lighting. Witness me ascend, glowing from within. For My love burns brightly. Flames won’t cleanse this heart of sin, so let’s stop pretending. No, you want vengeance. Baby, come and get it.
Face of Love
Her nametag says Elena, but she moves just like you used to. When I order a drink our eyes meet and the walls recede into—
Fog so thick I can hardly see. Stumbling through the woods to the sound of your feet, kicking up leaves. I find you on your knees staring at a nest of dead copperheads under a tree-split boulder. I say, “When you’re running like a maniac, you’ll get there fast but the wind whips colder.” You grab the cross hanging at your chest. Your other hand, soft, on the back of my head as I’m catching my breath. You lick my ear then nearly bite it off. “Save preaching for the flock.” you say, then smile at the rocks and proclaim, “Here’s the spot where God said to me ‘Once love has a face, child, you can never be free.’”
Sweetheart, nothing can save you from the face of my love.
Elena’s hand mimes that she’s waiting for me. Stick-and-poke lines etch the tide on her sleeve. And birthmarks off the coast of her sea change shape and fade near the nape of her neck, the faint pink of a dead reef. But her eyes shine with a violet hue I’ve only seen in you. The same pious smile too. My whiskey sweats on Elena’s tray as I try to count the years or the decades I’ve aged since I drove away. Like a snake that bites after death, some faces are ageless, in stasis, till one night they inject shame into an older you. What’s left to do? But project on the ice as it melts in your drink.
Sweetheart, nothing can save you from the face of my love.
Watch her shimmy though acrylic beads. Her hips are swaying, but I see yours swing. My broken body starts to feel like it’s seventeen.
I hear you singing,
The highway threads a line through your past. Do you see me every time you look back? Bright red in the sunrise crying, wondering where you might be driving. In the fading crowds of fools you lie to do traces of my face still find you?
Wait for me. I’ll jump up the truck and speed till I’m between your knees in the Technicolor gleam of the Starlight Drive-in screens. Then I’ll get that jealous priest who ran me out, baby. He’s just a fraud like me. And when my knuckles start to bleed, you’ll kiss ‘em clean. Yeah, but that’s a fantasy. ‘Cause I’m just ashes waiting to be scattered. Any place is fine. Don’t really matter.
Pray to Me
Elena’s clean and she’s never had a sip. Only the blood of the savior’s stained her lips. She appears to me in a dead confetti sea. Singing country karaoke through the mist of the coughing fog machine. Disco lights drift like flares on the braided halo in her hair.
Halo in her hair
When I was a kid, some nights, I’d shoot arrows in the sky and stand still trusting God would not forsake me, till one came down and took out my eye. Tonight, I’m gonna be just like that arrow and take Elena by surprise. Pierce deep and drain her of the blood of Christ and replace it with a flood of mine. Guitars start plucking from the speakers. Playing, “Lonesome, On’ry, and Mean.” I grab the mic, looking for Elena, doing my best Waylon routine. Then I find her with a stranger, his hand on the halo in her hair.
Pray to me
Licking the sweat from her birth-marked neck as he pets that halo in her hair. The speakers start to hiss as he kisses that halo in her hair.
I’m not a violent guy, but I don’t keep this knife around for fun. Next thing I know,Elena’s crying, “Oh my God, what have you done?” Falls to her knees in prayer. I tell her, “Pray to me, cause He ain’t there.”
Pray to me
Make my fingers like a gun, run ‘em on the halo in her hair. The stranger, slumped down in his chair, still stares at the halo in her hair. Don’t you be scared, just want thathalo in your hair.
Holy Bones
An old man bent in half walks towards the train tracks with his head at his ankles. I watch his hair drag on the cracked concrete, catching trash at his feet—heart candy and pink rose petals. I should have known by the cold it was Valentine’s Day. This month’s for groundhogs and dying, my father would say. The man shuffles by. Hear him groan, hear him sigh, as the train rattles up and waits. Ribbons trail from his shoes like the ones you’d use to tie your hair in a halo braid.
Baby, deep in the heart of Rome there’s a sanctified crown of flowers that would be better blessed as your headdress.
I’d brand your name on my face if you asked me to. I’d kill the winter with my shadow so your dogwoods can bloom. Though it seems like I forgot, there’s this plan that I got to steal a present luminescent as you. Ain’t no sacred price too great, no law that I won’t break, to see you shine like a stained glass saint.
Baby, deep in the heart of Rome, there’s a sanctified crown of flowers that rests on holy bones encased in gold. But it would be better blessed as your headdress.
I’ll walk the coast till I crawl. Bathe in pool hall stalls. Steal for my meals. Feed the hounds at my heels. Float, unknown, into Rome in a cargo hold. And snatch the crown, on a moonless night, right off the skull of Saint Valentine. Then I’ll smash his fucking head in.
Baby, I’d risk eternal fire to see your pretty head crowned in flowers. Don’t you cry for Saint Valentine. He won’t mind. No, he won’t mind. He’s been dead for so long, but we still got time. Elena please. Come on, baby, say you’re still mine.
Elena's Dream
There’s this girl wandering in the woods, following a voice. It leads her to a snake nest. Copperheads, I think. She’s seen these same ones before, when it was cold out and they were dead. But now they’re writhing around. The voice tells her it’s a miracle. They’ve been resurrected. He tells her to put them up to her neck, like right around where my birthmarks are. He says they won’t bite if she’s truly faithful. So she does it, and they bite her like a million times. Then she’s just lying there scared, abandoned, betrayed. I know it’s a dream, but it made me so sad every time I had it.
Then I heard somewhere that copperheads hibernate in the cold. So maybe the snakes were never dead to begin with. No miracle. I tried to remember that every night as I went to sleep. So she would know she was being tricked, but it never worked. Then the dream stopped coming.
Anyway, you left your jacket here. I’ve been wearing it around a little bit. You can just grab it next time.
Because You Asked
About a decade back, you asked, if I died would I haunt your room. I said, “Go to sleep. You won’t bury me anytime soon. I’ve tried for years. I think it’s clear that I’m immune.” Now my hands twitch. My blood resists the thrill of my favorite punishments. Thoughts rewind, and I find an answer in the loop. If I died, I’d stand watch till someone’s god forced me to move.
I’m not saying all this to get you back. No, honey, it’s just ‘cause you asked.
Whenever it rains, I’d watch you navigate a minefield of things from the kitchen sink. Bowls and pots in spots the landlord ignored the leaks. While the windowpane cascades in the busted gutter stream. Under your bed I’d find the jade pendant mixed with hair clips and tarot decks. An olive branch I bought you with my first bartending check. Watch it slowly fade on the broken chain you ripped from your neck.
I’m not saying all this to get you back. No, honey, it’s just ‘cause you asked. Don’t get it wrong, I’m not trying to win you back. No, it’s just ‘cause you asked.
I’d watch our dog’s face turn gray. Too tired to play. One day, she won’t return with you. New men. Old tears. Eviction fears. You and the mirror will conspire to move. I’d stay with your stray hairs. Keep the super scared during repairs you demanded for years. Fresh coat of paint over marks you made. When none of you remains, I’d disappear.
I’m not saying all this to make you come back. No, honey, it’s just ‘cause you asked. Don’t get it wrong, I’m not trying to win you back. I swear. It’s just ‘cause you asked.
Dive Shrine
He sits slumped on the barstool. Lips twitch as he fights to hold a grin. Aiming sighs at designs on the bottles. The owner’s dogs, when they whine, kind of look like him. But when old thoughts arise, he’s the happiest hound drooling on the bar. Howling divine from the bathroom line while pinballs trigger visions of dead stars.
Says he’ll stowaway to Rome. Itching to smash a holy skull.
While back, his girl picked out his casket—high sheen, shellacked, jet black, and cheap. She said, “I like that it reminds me of his jacket. Hate to think he’s cold in the earth so deep.” Now, he shivers alone when he’s home. Haunts the bar for some company. Says, “Let’s leave these fiends to tweak freely in the shadows. My roof’s got a view of the neighbor’s new TV.”
His face looks like a painting in the disco light. He’s treated like a stranger though he’s here each night. A lotus slowly opens in a bowl near his seat. He wishes he could smell it, but his nose always seems to bleed.
Says, “This place is kind of a memorial site for a sprouting love whose bud was cut. I’d sign the lease, tend the needs of this dive-shrine, to keep its relics from the jaws of the garbage truck. ‘Cause it’s getting hard to protect, you see. Time untwines all ties to memory. And people rarely come to pay their respects or sing some Pasty Cline over a backing beat. Soon I’ll find a room in the city. Leave my things for the weeds, ‘cause all I’ll need’s a radiator and some space to breathe. A place to get some sleep and outlive my dreams.”
Smoke
Smoke plumed from her lips as her whimpers shivered with the night birds’ song. Curled up under his black leather jacket, she fell asleep to the mating calls. With the sleeves wrapped around her waist, he held her in a dream. His wounds wept when she begged him to stay while the cigarette hissed on the sheets. He said,
“I’ll never leave. When the tears soak through your tattered hair, and you feel like dying, I’ll be there. Close your violet eyes and stay with me out in the fog between the evergreens. And I’ll never leave.”
“I feel like I was created to suffer. Sade had Justine and God has me.” He said, “Thought your god had Job for all that.” “Yeah, but Job was redeemed, and no matter how hard I pray, it’s just more misery.” His breath burned on her hips when he whispered, “You’ve got a savior in me,
‘Cause I’ll never leave. When the flames lick hot between your legs, hide in sleep and feel my tongue instead. Tried for countless lives to set you free. Don’t you resist this fire, come with me. ‘Cause I’ll never leave.
We’ll drift out to the sea, like mist between the trees, and start swimming. To the coast you’ve seen in vivid dreams and inked in your arm from memory. Bound to me, you’ll learn what pleasure pain can bring. Baby, you can suffer there in peace. And, child, you’ll never leave. Sleep through the sirens. Sleep through the sirens.”
Loretta
“Jake Saint lived his life like his namesake,” His wife, Mae, eulogized with a laugh. After the wake, she pried open his suitcase. Found a knife and a stash of women’s photographs—Typists with their lipstick kissed off. Fingers and thumbs, like guns, pressed to their temples. Said to her daughter, Loretta, “If there’s anything you’ll miss, grab it.” Hit a storm going towards Marietta. High beams on the sleet made sheets of TV static like night signed off till the morning broadcast. Mae said, “You’re gonna stay a while in your uncle’s attic.”
The basket by the cot made her think of catching pink petals as they fell to the grass. She scanned the town from the small round window. Found the cherry blossom by the Laundromat and through the naked limbs she saw the church steeple. Felt like God was peeking through the attic peephole.
That night she heard a hiss. A low voice whispering. Felt the thrill she gets when the highway dips. Pinpricks of mist on her sunburned skin. Even with her jaw clenched, His words shaped her lips. Saying, “Lift you voice to me with the noise of sin. Your mouth was made for worshiping.”
She joined the choir and sang staring at a martyr’s painting—flayed and swathed in the flag of his skin. One day, a boy drew her gaze to the stage as he kissed a twisting snake, all mad and rattling. Saying, “Sing His praise, for I ain’t crazed by no fever. You see, they got no taste for a true believer.”
That Fall, she spent her nights with the boy at the drive-in or lost in the fog of the woods. When she told him she could hear God’s voice, he said, “Loretta, you know better. This ain’t Hollywood. The silver screen’s been leaking into your thinking.” And she kissed him hard to keep the voice from screaming. She said, “I told my secret. You’re next.” His smile screwed up tight like a wince. “Truth is I keep my rattlers toothless. They have a hard time biting with their fangs missing. Now listen, I’m still one of God’s children, but with pops locked up it’s tough to make a living.”
One night, through snow-covered lashes, he looked at her with a sudden sadness and said, “Let’s enjoy this season. Come spring, I’m leaving. Alone.” She cried when she saw a flock of birds returning home. They kissed goodbye, and he climbed in his truck. She plucked pink petals from his hair as the engine started up. He said, “I’ll find you in the next life.”
Soon, Her lips pulled back to whisper, “Child, there’s a lesson in this. Forget the boy, prove your love to me.” She disappeared in the evergreens. Next day, Mae searched the woods with her bother. And past the creek, under canopy cover, where a boulder loomed with its ancient wound, Loretta lay in Azalea blooms. The sun cut through the shade and brought a glow to her face, igniting the violet shine of her open eyes. Her neck, a mess of snakebites and flies.
The morning gazette read, “Cleopatra of Marietta: The tragic death of choirgirl, Loretta. Her voice will live on in us forever.”