• Anemic nail polish dripped from lips
    to fall to a dark sticky floor
    in a gingerbread house underneath
    a sickly sweet city where
    an angel lives in hell-bent
    secrecy with darling-dear eyes
    and smoke screen fishnets over
    007 eyelashes with guns under
    their wingspan until he flies
    too close to that epicene/obscene
    night with candy pills tucked into
    his pillowcase and a lover’s breath
    a silk mask over his face
    in, out, flutter, twitch,
    teeth, glisten, lips.
    He’s made of feathers,
    deeply tucked underneath Earth,
    encased in a heartbeat.

    She tucks magazines into the barrel
    of a gun that she keeps stashed
    underneath her bed beside the
    prada heels and silk bandages that
    hold her together breathing
    in smoke left over from last
    night’s masquerade flowing across a
    tacky wood floor that’s seen too many parties,
    too many spills, too many sequins that breathe
    in and out on their own, manufactured
    with love by God himself into the
    fair beautiful drag king’s eyes, dripping
    wet with gold abuse and loving blows,
    hidden deep inside a pocket of her own
    kingdom, thriving on a pulse long forgotten,
    back before color, before lies,
    and before the sky was upwards.