It’s you baby.
I want you dropping the red bandanna between
our headlights pointed toward the cliff beyond
I want the lacy edge of your push-up bra pushing
up beyond your low-cut top to be
the last sight I see before I pedal to the metal
this hot rod toward oblivion
But you’re no Natalie Wood sweetheart, you’re bad
I’ve seen you in 1000 movie matinees, an afternoon cinema slut
the gangster’s moll
the hoodlum’s squeeze
the vampire’s wife
the creature feature monsterbait
number one slit in the lesbian biker pack
the razor chick in the all-girl gang
the tough broad sidekick
not the heartthrob but the handjob
not the heroine but the hard-on
with lips cherry red
kohl-ringed eyes
stiletto heels snapping castanets
hunks of skin under your nails
cleavage heaving beneath reptile hands
Tura Satana’s legs, Kitten Natividad’s jugs,
Bettie Page’s ass, Ingrid Pitt’s fangs
honey skin thigh jiggling giggling
sweet hole sticky lipped
You’re my personal Jayne Mansfield, head intact
My puberty’s centerfold dream realized in panting flesh
and I’m still in the third row, ordering
another jumbo popcorn, feet
propped up on the next row, waiting
for a flash of pink that never quite
makes it past the cut of the American
International Pictures’ censor
I’ve seen you play the sweater girl opposite Steve McQueen,
saving the world from aliens while
making out in the back seat, civilization
hanging by one bra strap
Lounge back in white trash splendor, lit up in the glare
of a stag film flickering on the fake
paneling of a basement rec-room.
Pull the switchblade from your beehive baby, the one
you stuck in Jeff Hunter’s back when he
fell for you like a schoolboy but you were
a dropout tired of a diet of white bread
You’re not a nice girl and I never wanted you to be
Smear the popcorn butter Bettie,
right across that swell looking mug
Swing your Fender Telecaster as you and Wanda Jackson
pound the shit out of Jailgirl Rock
I’ve heard your pumps clicking down a wet brick midnight
alley the hitman on your trail
I’ve seen you punch out the sorority girl at the sock hop
then get belly shot by the friendly cop
O’Malley in the end
keep riding that Harley mama, till the blood runs down
your legs
keep tossing that dynamite
blowing the side panels off Continentals
keep tossing back bourbons neat while
the college boys cough on crème de mint
keep your nails long and jungle red clawing
your way from the cheap sharecropper’s cabin
to the hard grit sidewalks of LA
keep shaking that wild bikini, squirming in the painted-on
leather, and shimmering
the cheap porno tinsel on the stripper runway
keep dancing on the edge of that cliff
as I race my souped-up Chevy
out into the dread air
keep loading the passion, both barrels blasting, sending
me over the cliff for one last look of that lacy bra,
one last look on the screen.
But you’re real baby,
no mere 2D projection of our desire on the silver screen
of the mind.
You’re all 3D –
no glasses necessary.
A selection from The Gunslinger in Technicolor, published by Mount Diablo Books and available in print from Amazon.
Jedediah Smith 