The streets are like streets—
only now and then rollerblading
fools auto-combust in the
tropical heat.
Banquettes fill with Pucci
chiffon and moleskin. Micro-
phones screech high-pitched bat
jive to perforate tympanums.
Pierced body parts dangle
synthetic diamond chips—
an arrow through an aureole
is all that remains of a
teenage hustler, a faux-ivory
snaggletooth through a lip
the only proof that Bam-Bam
pumped iron on South Beach.
Or pumped Pebbles.
This beat is Technototronic.
Pancake makeup and blow
mix into an indiscernibly
homogenized cumulonimbus cloud
which seems to guarantee a
downpour—not rain, but some
other liquid, perhaps Chanel
No. 5 or the new Issey Miyake,
the stuff that smells like Froot Loops.
Chalk drawings on the integument
of secluded alleys live out their
final moments, the outlines of
collapsed bodies and blueprints
for a hopscotch grid glowing
incandescent beneath starry
pulsations and unabsorbable
nervous energy.
(from Social Disease)
.