Look Homeward Angel
for Farrah Fawcett

I drink the cold black tea and Fatima holds
the cup with her left hand. I watch her
fingers as she swirls the flowered enamel;
they are long pink roots clutching a
peeled bulb, crossed like plastic scissors
with a jewelled fulcrum. she collects
rings: they shine on her hands and toes.
one of them is a gold filigreed heart
that hinges open to show a secret casket.
she keeps rat poison in there, and lumps
of blue drain powder. sometimes it
is like a band of lizards creeping from
her batwing sleeve. leashed with bright
collars, skimming coffee jars and milk
jugs dusting them with pollen. I have
seen lesions on the manager's lips
and faint spots bleach his angry face.
she is killing him, she says, with a
hundred swords. they clang in their
small menace when she drops the cup
to the table. she sees a crown in the
tea leaves. four spires and a broad
band; it means a powerful friend will
come to help me. and then the number
eight curls its swan neck around the
dark mulch. I will become more independent.
I feel the ache behind my shoulder blades
where three gray feathers hand. stitched
into a blood caked tangle of knots and
molting skin. the friend will be the
man, the man I become here, when I turn
into a gorilla ...

from The Honeymoon Killers/Look Homeward Angel
poems by Lynn Crosbie, 1990