Free

Free, the price tags shiny with white-out, it’s free, 
I go shopping with Dodie, the red shiny bag at Kate Spade
on Grant, let’s go into Agnes B and see how much the 
shirt cost that Chris and Brian bought me

Save, long time ago I thought you could save me
I pictured a dreamy house like Elizabeth 
Robinson’s, with a sunken tub, but instead I settle
for Squalid Manor, Frank O’Hara’s dull apartment

“Build three more stately mansions, O my soul,”  
I hear a voice that rings, it might be Kylie Minogue
the sexiest tomboy beanpole on the planet, 
that which I walked in size eight shoes, for to

Buy the ones we saw in the window, May sun
splattering them with pixels, we saw ourselves
the two of us, and I said, Ah, what’s the matter with me, 
I have nothing to look forward to

Ship of pearl, which poets feign, 
Sail the unshadowed main—
The venturous bark that flings, and suddenly
the pavement tears itself apart, a lift appears

Man comes up through the sidewalk
in front of Stella McCartney store in New York
a little bit down from Joe and Charlie’s
To have seen so much, to have missed so much!

Why, next time we will do better, till our
bleeding feet spurt compassion in our hearts—
in our next life when, perhaps, we will return
as a shell on the beach and a little pink kitten, 

Lucy.

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“Free” was first published in Action Kylie (In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni, 2008).