Amy Raasch
Dia de los Muertos
On the Day of the Dead, marigolds jam
my parking meter. City of L.A., don’t worry:
it still took my money & my illusions the dead are not
here with me sipping a Holy Molé Mocha spiced
by barista Nicely. A woman in hot pants, crocheted
lion-tail and filigreed metal wings like resonator guitars
made by the French luthier I met at that party in the Valley
wobbles by. Wrapped around her like a handcuff,
a burnt caramel flan of a man with strawberry schnapps
cheeks spits out a loose tooth, grins blood, pockets
his masterpiece. He’s MY animal, she wheezes
& winks one leathered lid at the neighborhood cat
who hunts crickets, butterflies, and squirrels the way
the ocean hunts a drowning man, the sun hunts
the burning boy with wings, a woman hunts a zygote
before it cleaves. On Main, men swing cranes
and sledgehammers, eat sandwiches with their legs dangling
fifty feet in the air. They never see the knit-tailed crone
climb the scaffolding & leap from a suspended girder,
flapping & calling for the impossible bird with the lion body
to dive down her throat and let her animal go.
~ ~ ~
Keep a black dress handy.
My neighbors Devo and Alex
drink rosé at 10 a.m.,
compliment my dress as I pass.
So Marilyn meets Jackie O.
I tell them I am going to a funeral,
bringing glamour to the dead.
But the dead have their own glamour,
swim their own black-bodied water.
My four-inch heels trespass their dirt.
White roses tossed, I kick them off,
let August pavement singe my feet
& hobble like a broken dancer
across the cemetery lot, spike heels
clasped in one fist like the necks
of two black swans. Santa Ana winds
spin tiny cyclones across graves.
It’s too dry to cry. I’m too thirsty too drink.
My old black convertible spits upholstery
like foam on waves. The West hangs
from the mirror like a dirty rabbit’s foot.
The sky looks lucky as a worm on a hook.
~ ~ ~
Bela Lugosi is buried here and so is Sharon Tate.
Smiling in sunglasses,
mourners take photographs
at a funeral.
I consider how taking pictures
of my cat in the sun
the day before he died
was and was not
like taking photographs
at a funeral.
~ ~ ~
Performance Art, Venice Beach
Mary, black-bobbed,
pomegranate-kneed
& once lovely, pops up
from inside a trash can
like a Jack-in-the-Box
yelling,
Women are trash! Women are trash!
Skin leatherbrown in the sun,
her teeth gleam
white as grains of rice
the Boardwalk huckster
inscribes with names
of tourists
who pay only
if they can watch.
I quote Mary
when I steal her bit
and put it in my show.
99-seat theatre doesn’t pay
but whenever I see her,
I slip her 20 bucks.
Amy Raasch learned to drive in Detroit but has lived in Los Angeles for many years and is thus fluent in both automatic and stick shift. She makes up her own tunings on guitar, plays piano like a monkey at a typewriter and sounds pretty good on flute. She makes records, movies, theatrical multimedia shows and a damn fine banana bread. Her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The American Journal of Poetry, ANMLY, F(r)iction, and a pile of large black sketch books you are instructed to burn when she dies. She holds a BA from The University of Michigan and an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars. amyraasch.com
