In a 1926 Suburban Backyard, the Older Sister Explains

How the Charleston Became Known as the Dance of Death

 

 

       When I die, taxidermy the torn pantyhose.
              In my eye sockets, let there be marbles
       from playing on the pavement, purple

scuffed knees & our skin smelling like sky.

       Mortar & pestle my wrists with buttercups,
              so everyone may know what a liar I am,
       always was. You remember the Schnapps
breath, orange peels, our laughter after

       I unhinged the backdoor with my left heel.
              Forgive me, for I have pinned
       a man to the mattress & tongued the pennies
of his earlobes like a magic trick. Brass section

       bondage. The music begins like this. Flick
              of the fist in soil pulling out bergamot root.
       Home, sick of the light & how we turn gasoline
sweet in chapel glass. The dance of baby’s breath

       & how we conduit all our mother’s shame,
              saccharine, saplings green in the love letter crease
       of cobblestones. It’s like this. The botany of a heel
clicking bed frame. Pentacles of sweat beads

       & harvest moonlight like a creamsicle melting
              across the floor. Look at you, doing your hair
       as if it will stay. Finger curled through the end
of a humid humming night. Across town,

       a trumpet is lamenting my good frankincense.
How I crossed my legs like it would bring me luck.