but oh he had also given her so much
twinkling eyes an insatiable
love of life
the ability to turn sorrow into incandescence
you are an artist he had told her
though he had never shouted
what she really needed to hear
and what, given her tail, was questionable anyway
you my darling, cherished one
are a beautiful
woman
miniature mouse
miniature mouse knows these things
she is still young enough to remember
that once she had a boy attached to her body
their very viscera entwined
their kiss just a natural proximity of lips
and even the roses and the little animals
were further extensions of them
so when they were ripped apart it hurt her more
than those who have utterly forgotten
and she must record the travesty of separation
again and again
the amputated limbs
the gouged out eyes
the double heart torn asunder
this is the task of the young, the artist
who remembers
for valentina
value your musical name your fashion sense
your strength
your light and dark your uncanny ability to appear
resurrected from the dead
believe him when he tells you you are beautiful
it will only hurt you both not to
(it is true besides)
dress as hard-core as you fancy or as sexy
wear black while your skin has enough light
not to absorb it
show off your belly and your breasts
as much as possible
someday when you have wrinkles
you may want to wear the clothes you sneer at now
spit swear dance fuck just don’t smoke cigarettes
and do wear sunscreen
(i wish i had listened to opinionated old women)
don’t be afraid to age
you will be more self-assured thus just
as fabulous as now
(except that then you will know it)
hold on to kind men don’t let them go
searching for the ones who will prove to
you the untrue things
you believe about yourself
choose to believe the ones who see
what you may not
choose to believe in your own myth
your own glamour
your own spell
a young woman who does this
(even if she is just pretending)
has everything
valentina screama
valentina is a doll with a spun sugar pink
pompadour
streaked with white lightning
eyes like ink melting pooling from the pupil
to the iris
to the slashes of lashes
marilyn monroe skin
dead-girl blue fingernails
she comes dressed in a replica of the egyptian gown
that a female vampire wore in the original dracula
long silvery pleats skimming her hips
and a midriff top
held with a giant scarab
but in her black coffin-shaped box is a pair
of tiny black converse
torn black jeans and a joey ramone t-shirt
for her more casual moments
valentina also comes with a tiny silver pistol
that shoots red glitter hearts
like a glam goth cupidette
she has another secret weapon too
every girl wants a valentina screama doll
every boy secretly does too
they don’t know that at night she steps
out of her black box
and watches you sleep
if you have been cruel or false
she bites you with her other secret weapon
the charming fangs hidden behind
her mysterious lips
it is not an unpleasant sensation
more like a tingling chill
like a spider bite that swells with venom and itches
to remind you
of who you might someday be
as i remember it: for lily
because now as i remember it
there was almost always a smell of flowers in the air
all i had to do was read poetry and write
run through the low green hills
once a pack of us walked across town
to a chinese restaurant
ate mu shu vegetables the thin pancakes the thinly
cut strands of cabbage and carrot
and tofu the lovely plum sauce
a dark moonless night
the porch lights of the old houses on
the leaves whispered threatening rain
but we got home dry
my boyfriend stayed in my dorm room he was sweet
as kind as a girl
on weekends we took a train into the city there was
music there were white wine beat
poet bars with sawdust on the floor candlelight
through the glass melting golden
colors everywhere pink taffeta thrift store dresses or
cream lace ones with blue
ribbons spreading out around me like petals
turquoise satin pumps with pointed toes
john doe and exene signing my t-shirt
chinese pastries and vases decorated with dragons
and peonies
a beautiful black-haired girl
who was studying medicine and painted lilies
emerging from darkness
bought me sushi shaped like flowers
told me she had a crush on me
though i didn’t know how to reply
just as i didn’t know how to stay with that sweet
sweet boy
though when i dropped to ninety-five pounds
he put his woolen arms around me
and held me close
trying to keep away the cold
and my father’s cancer
though we never spoke of it
for karen: whose last name i can’t recall
i was afraid she would take my boyfriend away
the one with the wounded looking mouth
pale child’s eyes with starry lashes
like he’d just come out of the bathtub
he wore a white shirt, levi’s and black shoes
wrote me poetry
we went to hear punk bands in dark basements
in the city
stayed in a hotel gray as the mist gray as doves
i was convinced he would fall in love with her
her white blond hair her germanic features
that was before i had discovered my secret
wound the story of a triangle my father loved
my golden mother
my mother loved my father i dark haired
and invisible
so i starved myself as the excuse
and ran away before the boyfriend
with the hurt mouth the star eyes could
and when i returned to berkeley a year later
he was in japan meeting the woman who would later
be his wife
and the blonde?
she was in a class i had and when we shared
our poetry
hers was about a thin girl in cowboy boots
and an antique peach silk slip
that showed the outline of her legs beneath
a girl so much more fragile than the poet herself
who stomped fiercely in black
both of them lost in a land of earthquakes
she was the second person ever to make me poetry
maybe i had it all wrong
maybe i was the one who was supposed to fall
in love with her
and now i can’t even remember her name
