Daughters of Silk Screams
© Copyright 2004 Zachary A Pugh

Machine
dreaming biology,
gasoline intentions,
and a woman brought him back here, to this strip, to suck in the ghosts of this town.
Nine PM in Vegas and the electric spawn dances off oiled streets of
naked lipstick stains, sensual cream thighs, wandering hips, and death eyes–
American hyper Goth, ravenous intentions with cropped locks & wide bright sockets of hell.
Old crust-man, long kilt, strange eyes, down to his last cigarette, no place to be,
drifting into her arms in park bench dreams.

The Vegas moon skulks above their heads, still,
and also
drifting
into the dry eye picket fenced
pocked arm dreams of dusk.

Machine
mothers of invention,
daughters of silk screams,
and shadow black shined to the core.
Silver-trim dreaming ‘69 Camaro,
three-hundred horsemen in blood cloaks, psycho grinning a mouth full of tools,
crouching, peering, spitting into the head.
The boys stood noble above the beastly V8 – a triumph of American eyes,
this lump of steel sent a lovely crude smell into the air,
a carb-pump laughter through the suburbs of Vegas.
This shapeless motion of scent,
now five doors down and seeping into the cracks of her window.

Exhaust and sweet rum cloves sent her back to razorblade nights unfinished,
and her under the arm of a man she did not know.
The exhaust now under her fingernails like the torn photograph under
a trembling thumb of scratched burgundy – it cannot be replaced.

The Vegas moon skulks above her head, still,
and also
drifting
into the dry eye picket fenced
pocked arm dreams of dusk.

Machine
consumption,
and the two lovers asleep since 8pm, four days ago,
lay with crude uncut cocaine at their laps and lips.
The younger of the two with neon follicles
and a spine as straight as a coffin spike,
on her back, face up at fake stars and cheap cigarette stains
seeping through a popcorn galaxy.
And the older of the two,
chop hair like euro-chic oil trash
about the same age as American hyper Goth.
And both lovers, up now, dry and gold from drops of sunlight flicker,
strain ivory malnourished necks and peer outside into the scene below their flat.

The Vegas moon skulks above their bodies, still,
and also
drifting
into the dry eye picket fenced
pocked arm dreams of dusk.

And the city bows to them, these lives,
creating fragments
of movement,
waiting for the daughters of silk screams
to scratch the stitches from their lips.