The Brooklyn Rail

Waiting For My Hair to Dye

I am a cyberpunk
prairie femme. My tinfoil bonnet
is practical chic. When you tap the rim,
it makes the sound
of rain hitting
the skin of an umbrella.
Fuchsia vortex in the drain.

When I was little,
I was told my dyed hair
would never return to the original
shade of brown. I thought that meant
my DNA would turn
manic panic. Atomic turquoise
blooming around my nipples and underarms.

Now I worry
about not looking queer
enough on the streets. Or I worry
about  burning alive inside
a nightclub.

As a drama kid
I would get called fag a lot. As a fag
I would get called fag a lot.
They said we were
a bundle of sticks, we burn
so easily. I hope when I burn in a bar, my dye
gives off the most noxious fumes.

Technique

kari, here I am look-
ing at people looking
at people on their phone
and thinking they must be
 in love, which can’t be taught,
but what’s the use of teach
ing if it's all perform-
ative anyways. In-
side a body space with
no boundaries. Paul taught
us the Meisner technique
inside a vinyl dance
studio saying in
all acting is “behav-
ing truthfully under i-
maginary circum
stances,” as we lay our
fourteen year-old bodies
down and had him adjust
our spines to “open up.”
Paul said no up speak since
it sounds too valley girl,
and that “everything is
about sex, except sex which
which is about power.”
kari, shitty men stain
the sheets of my mind. Dad
said my brother shouldn't
waste time on Christina
since she’s too fat to be
worth anything. Joe said
it’s “unreasonable”
for Mom not to sleep with
him on vacation since
he paid for it (though he
used upspeak) the logic
of it a blur like the
SUV that just passed
me screaming that I’m “fuc
king disgusting” in my
pink knit slip going up
Seventh, dressed up for the
Barbie movie which was
just alright if I’m be-
ing honest. Now I’m now wri-
ting this poem on the
 floor of theater ten crin
ging at how short my dress
is–how I’m asking for
it all–opening it
all up. O kari,
they got to me. They
ooze out of me like a blind
ing musk.

Each Gate is a Person

I have stained. Each gate is
the same person. Each gate
has my shit leak-
ing out of it, harden-
ing into clay. Each gate
is a rectum or sewer
hole. Each rectum is a
grave or a website, one
where you can send digi-
tal flowers or a shit-
ty gif of a flag @
half-mast. Each gate encoun-
ters a wall of fire
and looks up their family
name like a Heinrich Schliemann
looks up Virgil’s instruct
tion and proceeds to blow up
all 9 levels of Troy’s
remains. Heinrich has more
than 80 flowers on
his grave page. My last name
Cook is German too, comes
from Koch. Another gate.
Melvin Cook. A casket
In Pittsburgh. Jeff announ-
cing during the funer
al that Mel got right with
Jesus in his final
moments like he wasn’t
already gone from the
morphine and the edi-
bles Dad gave him morning
noon and night like an arc
of neon stepping stones
across the sky. Boom goes
the dynamite–anot-
her gate gone. Lament him
or don’t, just don’t promote
your god through him. My god
is Ishtar, in the form
of Kathy Acker, gift
ing me a lavender-
colored book on queer sex.
My saint is ISABELL--
A635, who leaves
a blue rose on every
admired author’s gate–
Shakespeare; Dante; Proust; F
Scott; all with the same line:
RIP precious one
in your celestial
 abode with your belo-
ved. I learned how to love
 through U. So cringe I could
 cry. Hold me ISABELL-
A635, I want
to learn how to love through
U like a gate loves the
city it watches.