"Siren" red walls.
Sex books stacked.
Sex books stacked.
Rose perfume.
Musings of hedonism
in red penned cursive.
Horror movies faintly screaming until 4 am.
Sleek polychromatic Hendrix poster.
Heap of old records in the corner.
Her domain a fashion igloo.
Vacant trees dark in the window
with the blue dawn.
She is tart womanhood
vast umber irises under defined lashes.
milky film over a slender frame
propped up on heels.
I enter her wonderland
sipping fruit juice
and having bizarre conversations with her
like I have for many years.
She tells me her musings:
“I read this book about serial killers”
“The 1960s babydoll look is making a comeback”
“J'aime n'importe quoi joli” (I love all things pretty).
A friendship arisen out of
a resentment for our private Catholic school.
And now I still enter her cozy haven.
No textbooks
only the strewn wanderlust of fashion sketches.
Words beyond her youth lilting out of her,
Paris,
la mode (the fashion),
cultured wine and thin pink cigarettes.
Her bizarre family,
with nonchalance she once told me:
“My mother’s side of the family
has a brimless fascination with macabre.”
Dropping acid on a whim,
rock n roll music and epiphanies.
I glimpse it all.
Her smallness walking the catacombs in couture.
Strutting the dirty pavement of downtown Portland.
Escapades among the city’s artists and politicians
on the arm of her rock star.
She tells me: “Do what you want.
Don’t live for someone else.”
