Laura
Bernstein-Machlay
Freezer Theater. 1981
beside a boarded-up liquor store.
Underage us nuzzling each
a bottle of fizzy alcoholic
something,
brown bags nestled like garlands
at our chests.
Suburban kids gone to the city, the
city we say.
Come to test spit and bluster
among punks squashed
into the out-of-commission meat
freezer,
to punch holes life-sized
in the air—Marlboros and pot
and clove rising sweet as sugar.
Fishnets
carving checker boards into my
thighs,
pulling tight in the crotch as I
hunker
on the floor with a nameless boy
but this comes later, long
after Larissa completes her
magnificent croak
into the microphone, after
the band has abandoned guitars
to party in the alley. Larissa,
Catholic schoolgirl
skirt shortened to handkerchief
so everyone sees
her skinny ass swathed in pink.
Larissa of broomstick legs
and crabapple knees, Larissa
resplendent,
roaring on speed, her dance half
pogo, half stomp kick
keeping the double-time beat
better
than the drummer, her arms
blurred
beneath the single sweating stage
light.
Angel she is, dry as winter, rice
paper insect furious
in her dance and I am so hot
with longing, thick and damp as
ink
among thumping gnashing Mohawked
boys,
the band reaching the climax of Clear
Vision
and arms come undone, return me
to sour carbonation on my
tongue, Larissa still
scoring her silhouette into the
smoke,
her buzz crescendoing with the
final crush-notes
when she topples backwards—all
of us pressed so close
everyone feels her hit, feels the
bob of her
against upraised palms
until she disappears towards the
back
where I spend the rest of the
night thirsty
on my knees, searching for her
shadow
across this strange geography of
crumpled flyers
and cigarettes flattened
underfoot,
the small lakes of ashes.