Marilyn

Here folks linger but never stay. Here Marilyn
winnows silver laughter through naked teeth,
swigs gin like iced love.
Lesser men and lost magpies flock to her screen
silhouette, their dark heads illuminated
red by the cinema light glow. Onstage
the rolling camera pins her down like a jeweled
beetle. Marilyn sings the color gold, flips up her
bowline lips like polished quarters. I wonder if
they ever arch into enough of a smile. The night
she pushed sugar-pale pills under her tongue, did she
finally learn to breathe? I imagine
in that crystallized moment, Marilyn
becomes a child again –
look, there’s Mama slipping a cool hand
against the cusp of her cheek,
voice smooth like cherry wine. Marilyn
in a checkered pinafore,
tossing cracker crumbs to dabbling ducks. Marilyn
in calisthenics class, standing
barefoot on the scale, stomach sucked in. Marilyn
in a too-tight wedding gown, dimpling hard
so her cheeks puncture, deflate.
She recalls Ophelia, who fell asleep
on a marble-blue river. That virginal white foam
of eyelet lace drags her arms down,
down. Sinking through dark water, weightless.
Her hooded eyes gazing up at the lens. Marilyn
drowning. Here, Marilyn
dead.