Kingdom of Dirt
By Cynthia Cruz
Soon the ambassadors from the Netherworld
Will begin
Their jet-like descent. Death,
Disguised inside me, already,
As sleaze.
Grime and her magnificent seed. Brother Rainer
Clutching his Bible, hallucinating helicopters.
Brother Rainer, child-like and wrecked.
Infamy, and the cosmology of chronic
Raveling and unraveling. Or,
Displaced insanity. Dirty Cindy, little
Glitter of her father’s
Spit: invisible, androgynous, a fragment of
His, found at the bottom of his dream chest.
Draped in my black cape of smut glue and
Subterranean, they mistake me for
A man in drag in my nasty
Boots. Why just look: a manifestation
Of stars. Or, appoint me hustler of
Brutal Rainer and his kinky noir
Scheme: me, at thirteen, on the beach
In a candy-striped bikini.
In time or out of time,
Glamorine.
Groom of the Underworld, please
Come with me
To the discotheque at the end
Of the world. Piss-
Elegant at the halfway
House for the trashed and gone galore.
Meet me in the love-
Burned orchard
Where the beautiful doomed
Meet at last.
Copyright Credit: Cynthia Cruz, “Kingdom of Dirt” from The Glimmering Room. Copyright © 2012 by Cynthia Cruz. Reprinted by permission of Four Way Books.
Source: The Glimmering Room (Four Way Books, 2012)