Valentina

Valentina flubs her lines.

The little weasel director crawls out of the drain and gives her shit for it.

And she knows--

The way that birds know north,

That the entire picture is shit,

That she shouldn't be there,

But there are bills to pay

And so there she is.

That night, she strokes her lover's ribs.

Up close, the stripes are like rain down a window glass,

And when he smiles at her,

The great cruel teeth seem almost like peppermint candies.

It isn't easy for her, though all her girlfriends are faint with envy.

Every morning, the bedding is in shreds,

And his golden eyes are so intense

That she stumbles into the shower feeling scorched from the inside out.

She likes to lay her face on his fur where it is white,

Like the pillows on her canopy bed when she was a girl.

She knows

That he will not always stay with her;

And she knows

That he is changing her

Even as they lay together

Breathing in.

Breathing out.

Valentina flubs her lines.

She is supposed to be saying something about childhood, it is her character's big expository scene,

But her mind is on her lover, and how his arms are so strong that a single touch could shift her from bones to fingertips--

That he can rip her open just by padding up the stairs,

And oh, how graceful,

How lethal

Is his leap.

Valentina knows the entire picture is shit,

And that she shouldn't be there.

The little weasel director is in an unholy panic,

He calls her a stupid bitch

But she stops him with a smile

And his throat opens to her tangerine-polished nails

Just like a sinner finding God.

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