Face Lift

Before / After

MISS FRANKENSTEIN DOES HER FACE LIFT 

“O God, make me 
good, but not yet.” 
― Evelyn Waugh, 
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
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Sometimes, I feel tres claustrophobic—
My Frankenstein past pressing so hard on 
either side that there's no room for the 
tacky disappointing present at all, but then
thankfully it’s not always like that

If you asked me now who I am the only—
answer I could give with any certainty are a 
few names of those I once loved, I can’t say
whether these emotions are my own, or stolen 
from those I once so desperately needed:
_________________

Colin Clive my creator Baron Frankenstein—
Basil Rathbone his brilliant son Victor,
Ernst Thesiger my genius Monster Mentor
Maria Ouspenskaya my trusting Palm Reader
Una O’Connor as poor Minnie down in the Pit

All my loves were merely hints and symbols—
vagabond-bondage scrawled on bathroom stalls
mere graffiti of the ghetto, such a tacky life
like all the other queens swishing before me
it fills me with sadness and disappointment
____________

Each memory of a hunky stud straining through—
and beyond the next, me snatching a cumly glob
now and then of my Double turning the corner 
always a pace or two ahead of me like all the 
other ones who quixotically got away from me