Sophia Sunseri

Coney Island

I am
not
a visitor here
among the
denizens,
cuckolds,
phantoms.
Among
the filth
that rides
the frothy crest
of lapping
waves
as girls with
pale-pink
wine-bottle
throats
sit idly
by, watching
the coyotes with
their dainty
white gloves
steal coins
from the
unmanaged till.

Old men with
hearts constructed
of collapsing buildings or
sloppy folds of
paper mache
lean against
wood-paneled
walls and
fish-wives crush
mermaid skulls
beneath the weight
of bare and calloused feet.

These wood-paneled
walls do not
preserve the uninspired
forms of
the men
who lean
against them.

So much
time spent
on the
receding shorelines
of my mind
trying to
decipher the
slippery threads
of his
silk-spun words
spinning slowly
myself into
slippery escape.

The denim sleeve,
the unwashed hands,
glide through
the gilded curtain
of my repressions.
They undo
the coiled strings
of my desires,
suggesting,
(in spite of the cesspool
of guilt that swells
inside of you)

I am,
in fact,
no better than you.
I carry
my secrets
in the form
of dust,
nestled
in the brim
of my hat.

from Conversations & Portraits from Huntclub Road

I.

2 fat albino twins practicing blowjobs on orange flavoured Fanta bottles in the moldy corner of the arcade as our father the taxidermist, AKA: Fucko-the-Fuck-Face, shovels snow and discusses the twin towers.

II.
A naked bald man wearing only white socks and bowling shoes waxes the floor of the gymnasium with a retarded girls hair ribbon.

III.
Somewhere within the vastness of the hot-tub (Jacuzzi Deluxe) Jimmy yells: “Hell’s bells! I need a woman; I need a debutante in a leather skirt.”

IV.
The field has been burnt down. There are dead deer arranged along the chain-link fence in front of where the field used to be, their still warm bodies melting the snow around them. Lights from the police cars paint the white canvas landscape with translucent streaks of red and blue. A young Hassidic boy, who is accustomed to taking his schnauzer Batman on long walks in the field, stands on the edge and looks in bewilderment. Batman barks and then pees in the snow.

V.
An Iranian midget wearing white polyester pants and white platform shoes plays the piano gently.

*

Sophia Natasha Sunseri has an undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, in Asheville, North Carolina. She currently lives in Brooklyn, where she is in the process of applying for her MFA degree.