Elaborate Hoax

I don't trust you between here and Barrow Street where
the cold chestnut air enlivens your pores and lifts your spit
when you let a white glob drip the dangle drop.
An airplane flies so low over the city that the landing
lights can be seen through the thumb and index finger
made into an O. Maybe it's a cigarette as you doze
you remember what was that again? The kelly green
audience is clapping at your antics, spooning your corpse.
Vick's Vapor Rub is smeared on the heel of your Italian shoe.
Everything smells like an expensive candle that smells like an
old church and for an instant you are transported
to a place free of all needs. All your friends are movie stars,
you are spastic and purple, all your kitchen cabinets are full
of feathers and dead birds with lemons stuffed in their beaks.
You don't know anything that I don't already know.
Your angel, if you believe in such shit, is made of red mud
and yarn and some pale custard poured into a bag
in the shape of an angel. Your angel is fed animal fat and grief
I can see him maxing out on the oxygen so
he can finally sleep well enough when you screw gallons into
that stranger with liquid smoke. I will always love you for that.