The clown kicks a good sturdy pair of Converses
near the pink-haired girl, a good, sturdy
pair clamped to the concrete like a grandaddy longlegs.
She recites lines from Stevens' 'Thirteen Ways'
in line to get the stitches removed. Jay Lynn
tells her there are thirteen ways to jump from a building
and the brother beside jogs his leg, doglike
to a song that never ends.
She chews sugar.
Warm vanilla cut with ozone; the lobby
smell. Nine, twenty two, eighteen, and her,
cruise tickets crumpled in a canvas purse where a black widow,
dead, cannot weave.
She's named after the pop singer.
There's a sign above her head in big bright neon
flashing I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU and
a champagne flute snapping in syncopated time.
They will excise the stitches with cereal
and little spiders, a million of them.
She pats her kid sister's head and the kid says
it will be all right, do not worry,
little sayings the computer programmer kept on the fridge
where he kept cured meats and sauces.
Neon purple, the kind that glows in alleys in movies
with illicit intent. The doctor will see her now, the fat nurse
says, features masked like the clown.
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