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• "Blue Madonna"
It's
a little Petri dish of a room. Dark and small, the bed depressed. The Madonna
framed next to a painted metal wardrobe. Paint peeling in layers of muted blues
and oranges by the desk near a shuttered window. From here I'll cultivate the
blues. Bring them to the surface and roll in them, spread them in a thin layer
to the places they have yet to touch. The Madonna feels them--my blues--and extends
a comforting hand. She seems to be offering me solace in an alternative I've yet
to consider. Here in Rome the possibility of heaven seems somehow more plausible.
•
"Kissing Michelle"
MICHELLE
DAVIS WAS Shirley Temple recast in black. She was goodness with a high-yellow
glow and a virgin's smile for a virgin she was, and a teenage beauty queen to
boot. In that part of my 14-year old imagination, which if you're feeling generous
I'll call erotic, she was second only to the darker, shorter and altogether less
refined, Adrienne Jones. Both Michelle and Adrienne were well beyond my grasp.
Each was the radiant queen at the center of their respective circle. Each was
surrounded by rings of progressively lesser girls. Scrutinizing girls. They were
the gatekeepers, acid-tongued demons armed with an insulating contempt. Demons
waiting to hurl insecurity-seeking barbs at all but the most confident boys. They
were, in short, the queens' defenders, and here they are in action.
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