We drifted from dusty velvet
seats, ghosted black floors, crawls
and stretches skyward while spots overhead wept

fluorescent. Impatient we dusted
off our damp spandex. You chided
how we flaunted our young pudge.

My first shudder on the stage
in your big hands, my first kiss
in the greenroom. I felt through
your leotard. Sex, you assured us,

was not hold your head carefully in my hands
pulse in your eyelids, in your bleating
chest. Unwinding that taut
curtain rope, your plaster mask

laughed, my mask hated that youth
you conjured from suicide and seduction.
We all had faces scratched in our skins
from botched and sloppy births.

We all had weakness for poison and the stage.
Your song was kitsch, your lighting contrived:
Fade and pause. Fade to black.

No one came to our shows.
The calculated color, inside jokes,
share the wine routine. We teased your vibrato.
My voice whispered,

who are you? How much is this
is about flesh? I tried to tell you
no amount of powder can conceal
all our many pores.