Buzzards on Parade (redux)

The twelfth day of the month was Copperhead Monday. Serpentine was the look we were going for. Beatific upper register notes is what Maria was reaching for: Ta da la ta da la dao, was what she sang to a supper club of adoring mengeese eyeing a pair of lady rattlesnakes.

Midnight. Tuesday morning. Applause. Thunderous.

Savorous twistings of moonglow hairs into chignons and much dispensing with shoes and underthings. There was nothing like a cobra line dance to make it libertine-free and parsimonious-lite.

(I, the author, heard someone order a chocolate stout. “Not served here,” was the reply.)

Vehement—something akin to buzzards on parade: wing-wide convection current surfing loafers—something free, not imagined, not paid for, not patented and surely made to disappoint.

Asseverations to “live fully and create in the midst of the desert” notwithstanding, Maria went home alone.

What I’m Reading:

… the perennial question of whether the United States still lingered in a pre-fascist twilight, or whether that darkness had fallen long stupefied years ago and the light they thought they saw was coming only from millions of tubes all showing the same bright colored shadows …

— Thomas Pynchon / Vineland