Dear Babylon,

What will you be like when the daylight comes? I’m glad you’re Diana Ross, today. What is she scraping off her face? Two strobing flashlights at the apex of the cheekbones, one on the tip of the nose. I’m so glad you’re Dorothy. Nineties depression chic nirvana flannel and hobo overalls accented with stilettos are back falling through lawn chairs as Rodney King. Your dog ran away in the night and I’m celebrating. Caleb caught a case and I’m running through the streets like there’s a bouquet of swords in one fist and balloons in the other, dissembling my distress. In high school we read Camus’s Rebel but stayed up till midnight to catch the second airing of Jerry Springer on three way. I mostly remember the brawls and such earnest DNA testing, such universal are you my daddy tales. We’d stay on the phone and wait for the results. The audience hated reconciliation and everyone was someone’s mom outrunning the weightless claymation noonnight. Praying for patient doom. Tasting like Cool Ranch Doritos and a room of one’s own. Sullen minstrel cuddling the spotlight won’t you put down your phone and tell me what’s really the matter. Why won’t they call security before she hurls another chair. Their spectacle protects them from sorrow and all sorts of water rots in Chicago and no one seems outraged when the mother’s boyfriend is her daughter’s babyfather     no one turns down the complimentary coffee and hamburgers     or stabs him in the groin.     By default, by heroic shamelessness.     Did you spend at least eight and a half minutes in daylight.     Did you radiate like starch in the Paleolithic age, get so thin it aches. Is the rebel wanted dead or alive? I had asked Diana. She had gone into hiding by then.