Michael Cluff- A Poem

Lily Prigmore

"Where we used to serve
boxes of Snoopy and Charlie Brown
cookies to our theater clientele
in the cramped snack bar
with rusty water

"Tattoos of the two same
can be seen being applied
to one's backside
below the bikini line.

"And on our stage,
I played in Love Letters
four nights last March
with Lawrence and Leo
while Lauren alternated
nights, male partners, performances with me.

"Now we have
a different artist
plying his craft
in inks, dyes, and needles
odd hours
of the day
six nights a week.

"Bruno,
I hear his name is,
the tattooist
wrote, enacted a different sort
on the bodies
of Bambis and Blutos:
some of their screams
punctuating our performances
in unsavory, and probably
unsanitary ways as well.

"Some evenings
the community playhouse's cognescenti
and the tattoo parlor's
poked patrons
collide
in the open foyer
braiding two types of theater
in ways
that headlines in
small-town, minded
newspapers like to exploit.

"Such low morals
as the owner, Mr. Hedgewood
has shown,
renting to such rabble
is destroying the fabric
of  us all pure-hearted Americans
these days."

Lily alights
from her lounger
in the foyer and leaves

a soiled tampon wrapper
stuck to her right heel
smearing the wind-blown grit
in her berth and wake.