Beauty is Imperfection

For Us, It Is Always 9-10

We bowled open the heavy black door

And light bloated our faces

From the cellar, as freaks

Flooded in and out;

Destination: Taxi stand

Robust in your plastic wrap

And platform shoes

The boilers sobbing under your feet.

Every brouhaha was new then,

Every fight was golden,

That ghost-fishing night

I gave you away with your

Ludicrous plume to your anger

The diadem and feather fan

And the gold espadrilles

A complement of Meat Packing District Trannies

It was a beautiful drama in a prelapsarian blue light

Of dawn, always our address

The room where we poked each other in the hurt

To see where the hurt was

We still live there, some of us; because for us it is always 9-10

Two long stemmed lovers

With all these tomorrows frozen before us

A day still stiff in my knuckles with my lapels

A kiss waiting on a rouged mouth,

Still hanging to die

–Eric Rasmussen

(originally published March 19, 2007)