CINEMA PARADISO
It begins with vulnerable me, Pinocchio-tall,
hand-led… all eyes and ears and nose-a-tingle,
my virgin sneakers scuffing the stampede-
worn, musty, magic-kingdom carpet down
the velvet-roped gallery of lurid posters…
siren posters singing in silence, singing me
dizzily forward beyond my years, singing me
back fridaysaturdaysunday, singing me
sugarplums of dynamited railroad trestles,
riders hellbent-for-leather, bare-knuckled
brawls fought over damsels in the dust
above the ripped-bodice cleavage and
always, always… the naked thigh
titillating… tantalizing me down
the tilted funhouse floor into the
electric-yellow popcorn dark…
my Rip Van Winkle real life
leashed to a parking meter and
left languishing in the black and
white sunshine outside…
It begins with vulnerable me, Pinocchio-tall,
hand-led… all eyes and ears and nose-a-tingle,
my virgin sneakers scuffing the stampede-
worn, musty, magic-kingdom carpet down
the velvet-roped gallery of lurid posters…
siren posters singing in silence, singing me
dizzily forward beyond my years, singing me
back fridaysaturdaysunday, singing me
sugarplums of dynamited railroad trestles,
riders hellbent-for-leather, bare-knuckled
brawls fought over damsels in the dust
above the ripped-bodice cleavage and
always, always… the naked thigh
titillating… tantalizing me down
the tilted funhouse floor into the
electric-yellow popcorn dark…
my Rip Van Winkle real life
leashed to a parking meter and
left languishing in the black and
white sunshine outside…
