Sin título

Pseudogoth, pseudocadaver,

a metropolitan bruise made for Angelina Jolie, resting on your lips.

Yesterday, a woman walked into the shop wearing that brown-purple shade—

sickly, cold.

Eighty years old, maybe fifty, maybe far fewer than I believed.

Smeared, sliced, drifting toward the edges.

On that wrinkled, cracked, bone-dry lip,

several small voids where the lipstick had vanished:

dotted line, broken line, crosswalk, casual interruption.

A kiss from that October night.

Color folio?

This page I’m writing on is white, not purple—

sometimes yellowed, recycled, gentle.

Nothing about this lipstick is that folio.

It is frozen corpse, late-’90s Hollywood.

earplug anclado al cartílago lateral, desde aquí a aquella antena:

Viena, Berlín, París, Madrid;

Europa estancada en pantalla metacrilática.

Localizada.

Barra acérica, Margiela pasarela.

Carrie Bradshaw, sueños guiados por espinas diseñadas para pezuñas urbanitas.

Aquí, armadura marginal madrileña, Bad Gyal suena en los Airpods.

Airpods anclados, labios hidratados, imantados, atacados, aginebrados para el botellón, para la fiesta

apartada allí, al lado.

Carretera lateral, árbol saliente en la cuneta, en la acera. Hace camino mientras paseo por esta sombra.

Esta acera.

Esta acera.

Está A CERA.

A CERO.

ACERO.

Aleación amantillable, tacón afilado.

Aguja para bordar antes, anterior a olvidar.

Higher mountains have been seen.

But none brighter—

I picture a drag queen doing a spin and dip. It smells like

synthetic leather, like glue, the kind that sticks to your fingers,

the kind you can peel off like a scab. Possibly the girl who glued

on every little stone that fell off her heels knows this feeling.

JEFFREY CAMPBELL CROSS

HILLS, HEEL-LESS HEELS,

little mounds, a house without foundations.

a cross in the center made of tiny stones that mimic diamonds.

THAT MIMIC DIAMONDS.

They fall apart after every walk to the disco. After each outing

at least two stones disappear.

She stops by the bazaar, picks out and buys some similar

stones, for 11.

Stones that look alike, and THAT

glue: transparent,

strong, liquid Loctite.

She glues each stone

carefully, rebuilding the fallen cross; but you can tell those

stones are from Villaverde, Madrid (really from China), from