Chelsey Minnis

from “Opera Fever”

A voice like a murderer’s gloves..

Eyes like locked locks..

I like it when you talk with unexpected softness and mispronounce words...

I find you to be susceptible..

It makes me sweat on my mink...

And the music opening like a casket...

The music like a dripping power line...

Darling all the groaning and coughing of silence...

Tears slash at my eyes!

And you stand in the rain in a devil costume...

Now sit down and finish your dessert

This is a sheer sleeve that ends in fur...

This is a deepening banquet...

You had a very glamorous mother who would slap your face after a dinner party..

One isn’t satisfied with fondness...

Don’t hold me so tight...

I get bored, darling

I told you I hate yacht parties...

Didn’t the charm school teach you how to handle this?

You put your bare foot on the tiger’s head...

Now let’s open our gun cases...

To find nothing but love notes

These are the pink pumps that I use to walk among the mud puddles..

Let’s see if we can say this any bloodier...

“This is what it took to console myself.”

It was a tantalizing loneliness..

Like a see-through dress on the bed

Then he covers her mouth while they slow dance..

The main thing is to whimper and cry at first...

And wear chiffon wings in the armpits..

I feel so lecherous...

Darling, how can I think in this dress?

If only I could excuse myself and leave the room..

I love him, and his voice is a crust of ice.

But his voice is the xylophone at my funeral!

You lie in bed, lipstick glistening..

Then he starts to explain he’s a no-good hustler.

Do you really want to walk out on a no-good hustler?

So, you pulled the diamond-encrusted lever..

And it was simply another crate of velvet blindfolds...

I have a weakness for big industrialists..

That’s what you are, isn’t it, a little whore...

One tear under each eye..

I wonder if we will always see each other across the room...

Through a giant peephole..

Maybe I just like a man in tights..

With a voice like a mink trash bag

Darling, feel my forehead...

It’s a crude admission of love...

When you dance a waltz without looking at each other...

Do you always sleep with such beautiful eyelids?

On an overstuffed satin chair..

And then trudge through the leaves like love letters...

Darling, you must be roused.

Darling, you lounge in your melancholy like an alcove...

I spit out my food whenever I think of you...

So, let’s have a shared hearse...

And then some groaning under the fur coat...

Let’s be very hard on veils..

Like a dark summer with too many funerals...