Eager as an ingénue at her coming-out party,
this skinny kid in lipstick and a thrift-shop mink —
smiling, radiant — hikes his skirt scandalously
high, flashes a lace-trimmed slip,
a lean length of thigh, and poses
between the patrol wagon’s wire-mesh doors,
a generous-brimmed hat tipped back on his curls,
happy to be the camera’s focal point.
A man caged behind him in a gray suit,
face hidden behind a fan of fingers
as if he had something left to protect.
He feeds on his own hunger.
He wants what he wants: the beautiful boy, before time
takes its steady hammer to that smile.
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Previously published in Black Stars of Blood: The Weegee Poems (Main Street Street Rag, 2018)
Getty Museum
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