apartheid negligee

She owned the street like an emaciated
1920’s starlet in apartheid negligee
the bars of her prison par-created
along horoscope pathways
and tarot laid wishes smeared
with the questionable legality
of sweet talking frauds in velvet and lace

Beneath the cigarettes and malt whiskey
lay a truant shyness
that lit her up with a redemptive wattage
when the doors closed and the lights went out
just as the sun ascended the horizon on a new day
scattering her night time creatures into dark musty corners
of litter soaked alleys and dilapidated boarding houses

Love had run between the wars
before losing out in the bad luck bingo redraft
of the 1940’s when he marched out
on the 14th of December and was returned
two months later, in a box

She owned the street like an emaciated
1920’s starlet in apartheid negligee
her heart shipped out when her love was shipped in
and now she walks out the nightmares in crumbling heels
along broken streets where she’ll let slip her laddered stockings
for men without faces
in the drunken hope they’ll fuck her away to imaginary places
where she can pretend they are someone else
before love came home more metal than man
and she was unsegregated by the dark of her mourning

© Indie Adams 2013