KarMel
Scholarship 2008
|
Poem “The
Cut” By Collette Earnest |
Desciption of Submission: “A poem describing
the transvestite red-light district. This poem sheds light on how society often
rebukes what they believe to be obviously wrong but ignore what is before them”
- Collette
|
Trapped in gutters,
sitting on dirt-gum sidewalks I kick my heels off and
pad through streets in torn stalkings. In the cavern of cold alleys are queens half awake or strung-out
on crooked eye-lashes blinking in the flashing florescent. Cans blaze where large
hands adorned with plastic rings warm up. Fur jackets bristle in breezes and chipped fingernails melt. Hiding within dark
mirrored cars are men, sweat dripping upon their white collars. Briefcases are clutched between shaking knees. They lick their lips like wolves, pockets filled with wads of dollars. Drooling. Sauntering, these broken women limp
forward, droop their broad frames over the windows. Lipstick a shade of
denial-is-lethal red, eye shadow an abused-raspberry blue. Cigarettes, wringed with a
greasy pink line gather in ashtrays. Hair is tangled, styled
beneath bathroom blow dryers, small clothing stained and strained to fit. Veins crawl along hands that can never be
altered, puffed lips curl in a vicious smile. This is the throne, the cool leather sucking at
her thighs. There is no jester playing
games in court, reciting truths hidden in coy jokes. These half-men are wrung
from the towel before it is thrown out. Tossed upon the cobblestones, they lurk
second hand stores reaching for mini skirts and used
cosmetics. Women locked into a body
who betrays them, bolted into a system which condemns them. Those wolves in their
Cadillac cages will return to suburban castles
complete with a Betty Crocker wife—two children playing in the watered grass. Escaping the cold
wasteland they condemn. I stand barefoot in their
dim-lit paradise cursing the cruel creator. |