Hollywood and the Plains of Sodom and Gomorrah
We only need the mouth, red, open, of
That star of stars, lush Marilyn, to say
It all. Just one small gesture makes us love.
The open lips of ripeness kill the gray
That dominates our lives. They symbolize
As opposites the hollowness we yearn
To leave behind. Elizabeth’s blue eyes
And countervailing lips were made to burn
Us in our hearts and never mind the jewels
She got from Richard. Eye depths saturate
More utterly than depths of sapphire pools.
Those irises are queens. They act like fate.
They doom us in our Tuesday small-town lives.
They turn to salt our ordinary wives.
~ Phillip Whidden