—Killer’s Kiss, 1955

 

Legs and torsos pitch in the currents of wild swings:

under doll-stares, the villain’s axe tears

 

through stocked body parts before the leading man floors him

and makes the gangster scream—it cuts here, but I know

 

how he scrambled to the streets, stopping under a framed sky, dark

and suddenly clear. How he forgets the taxi-dancer prize,

 

pencil-skirt lines, the canvas mats that burned his boxer skin.

How the cold air bites his lungs until he laughs

 

a tight little sound. Behind him in the warehouse,

plastic chimes in the last wind: four inverted hands on strings.

 

 

 

Photo By:  Night–thing