Plunging, shoeless, in the yard
we pick our decks of dandelions.
You have slim white gloves
and I have bright red lipstick.
Attractive weeds, we are.
Puckering, we blow buds off,
shattered, like glass pearls.
You crumple up the street stems,
The seeds have struck my hair.
Attractive weeds, we are.
Prolifically, we spread ourselves
up and down the sidewalks.
We stand in every concrete crack,
and light each other’s faces.
Attractive weeds, we are.
Inspired by Vail Verone and Evelyn McHale
A beloved friend of mine is in the process of researching McHales’s story for a novel concept, one that I hope reclaims her body (our bodies) from the grips of the aesthetic attraction of death. This poem is dedicated to us both, a grim refusal to be allured into submission by a culture that declares our bodies, our exhausted, queer, female bodies, will be most beautiful once they are dead.