Holly Magill

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flipside

liquor bottles, crumpled lyrics, dust motes gold on bare wood floors,
after-party blurred and blonde, androgyny, scents of cigarettes, good,
effortless sex. the women’s faces are grainy chiaroscuro, lips and
eyes darker, deeper, cheekbones both softer and sharper. someone’s
borrowed guitar stumbles on next summer’s biggest hit and everyone’s
forgotten whose chords they are by noon. girls lull in clawfoot bathtubs,
overflowing, mermaid hair steams over the rims. girls slow dance in the
light of beautiful boys. near balcony edges. any fall may birth a muse.

dawn manhattan loft or chateau marmont bungalow – each album
cover-shoot that never was, each 1970s nostalgia-wank, tucks snug
under her multiple chins, a slying. not that we see the blunt-crayon
ugly of her. addiction with acne is sludgy, boring. the first eight lines
of this are her gift to us: no one’s breath stinks of vomit. no one shits
themselves when they o.d. someone remembers to feed the chihuahuas.

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HOLLY MAGILL’s poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is co-editor at Atrium. Her first pamphlet, The Becoming of Lady Flambé, is available from Indigo Dreams Publishing.