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CITY WARD CAMILLE

Written By Royce Sykes
waya@swbell.net

Day begins in the murmuring heart of the city;
I chart her arrhythmic pulse amidst precipitate
wails of ambulance sirens and the artificial
cheeriness of ice cream truck calliope tunes.

Elegant and classy bitch, she's always been
a wonderfully difficult patient, too stubborn
to die if only for amusement at frustrating
those suburban heirs gossiping among themselves

where they think she can't hear, while awaiting
with drooling piety, the dispensation of her will
(certain it could happen any day now, or should.)
More fools they, her wealth is completely committed

to surviving another night with occasional splurges.
She can still dance and sing, laugh and fuck you up,
fuck you over, just plain fuck you into exhaustion.
Her come hither smile invites anyone without regard

for circumstance, age, race, or gender to get high
on her stench and drunk on her yeasty juices, groove
to screeches of her faked orgasms and self absorbed
masturbation until blind, wear her filth as reflection

of personal decadence, all it takes is a dialectic
between sadistic humor and masochistic bent. Yeah,
she seduced me as a child, my innocence the garnish
for a cocktail she barely tasted, only half finished.

Yet, even though I ran away, I had to return to see
what more she could teach me. Though greeted with
indifference, still I find her allure inescapable.
While I'm no physician who can cure her ills, those

very souls she disdains for arrogance; only for such
as I, who watch and care and love in vain, she licks
cracked lips and flutters thinning lashes; if not
otherwise distracted, she might take and reinfect me.

© 2001 by Royce Sykes