touching hard back to soft underbelly

Lee Miller is laughing at Jean Cocteau
All black and white silhouettes
Because they are wrapped in cellophane
In a museum, dusting thin
With trumpets lining up to bathe beside her in Hitler’s bathtub

Marilyn Monroe reminds me of a summer’s afternoon
Drinking cheap week old uncovered wine
From a pint glass
Staring at a stiletto
Peering out from under a beaten couch

They be dancing under the umbrellas
Large and striped docile
Taking photographs with gasmasks
A strike away like a soldier you know
Us civilians, looking fat like santa
Blaming placed on bottom sole
Scuffed to a fine polish

When her voice crackles under incendiary bomb blasts
Picasso flashes a rounded hand claw shaped
Towards the showgirls lining my window sill
A dull throbbing castrating senses
Making America look dull like oyster colored fridges


matthew wedlock (Taunton, MA, 1984)