Chris Early: Sheryl

Sheryl lies upon the bed,
cooling out,
wispy phantoms float off cigarettes
and haunt her whiskey lips.
Legs parted like a pie
with one slice
eaten inside a la mode thighs
angle over sour sheets.
They are silk. A guitar
sleeps beside her, always, and
I am stoned again, nude,
seated on carpet,
waiting for it.
It’s not the sex that troubles me, I lament
for the hundredth time,
only the ensuing atrocities
people commit in its honor. Still,
she likes it rough,
Sheryl,
huffing her cocaine, calls me Billy Idol,
and she plays Stevie Nicks
so wounded
and sexual, I swear:
a terrible gleam in her eyes
like Cleopatra shining.

In all the painted runes of her rockabilly tarot,
Sheryl never predicted me, nor this
cheap roadside motel,
a pistol under my pillow,
nor another
bleak, enchanted
afternoon
hiding from the sheriff
in the bootheel of Missouri.