Pucker Up

A quick note to one Salvador Dali:

You scare me.
I've seen your paintings
the broken black telephones hung from dead and decaying trees,
swans made of bones with the souls of dancers trapped in their rib cages,
not to mention the red, boiled lobster...phone???
Who knows. All I know is that
your exhibits make my head spin
to the point where I have to sit down.
Which I did, on one lush, plush, crimson sofa at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
I sat, my head spinning, until approached by a security guard who said,
"Miss, your sitting on the exhibit."
Oh!!!
I look and there, two lush, plush crimson lips of one Mae West.
Mae West, a luscious vaudeville star
who, like Marilyn Monroe captivated her audiences with
the power of her body.
By selling the movement of her hips, her lush red lips, and her soul
Mae West climbed to the top, and remains there
a suspended goddess.
To think, my ass and her class.
My ass and her class.
My ass and her class.
In that moment, Salvador Dali, my head stopped spinning
and I thought...

Pucker up Mae West,
there’s something in the water.

Oil on the surface
beautiful in its separateness,
yet deadly in its own right.

Covering the surface,
oil is always one to reflect the light.

Pucker up Mae West
there’s something under my skin.

Relentless as probing fingers
pushing
driving
me
to become
the oil,
to reflect the light
and to … sep - a - rate.

Pucker up Mae West
I’m the one to watch.

With just one,
simple promise -
I am the oil
deadly in my own right.
discrete, all-knowing,
guilty in my
reflection… of the light.

So, pucker up Mae West.
You fooled them once,
I can do it twice.
Pucker up
Pucker up

Kiss your legend
while I kiss my soul

goodbye.