The Burning World (The Drought)

The girl who dances on the dunes
is known by many names.
She has been Marilyn and Jayne
and may be Britney next.
Her white dress and her bleached blonde hair
shine like bone, seared desert
dry. The contours of her face flayed
by the sun's bright flensing
edge, back to mannequin perfect
hardness, back to planes smooth
as the elision of her tongue
as she begs for something.
Babe, just to take the edge off, please...

Kopek cannot bear the straight lines
of her teeth - once braced, now
capped - their enamel luminous:
a ghost train grin betrays
the skull beneath. And he watches
tendons flexing, muscles
taut in her toned calves, as she twirls
across the sand - high heels
awkward, yet stork graceful - each step
leaving pixel patterns:
dots of binary code ballet
on silicon grained slopes.
Try this, babe. Fry your freakin' mind.

Once, there was an ocean, stretching
to the hazed horizon
and there are fossils, finned and fanged,
still to be found. Cities
gone to dust ringed a shoreline lit
by phosphorus and moon-
beams, which she glimpses limned
by the blue-screen facade
of burning skies. She is at home
on movie lots and sound
stages, where the peripheral
is real and drugs are hard.
Babe needs a line to learn her lines.

His hands seek the heat and cactus
prickle beneath panties
from her own name brand. The on/off
switch of her clitoris
to open the hermetic seal
on her retread hymen.
He views the texture of her flesh
on screens and on hoardings
ten metres high. Notes the reconstructive
surgery on her nose.
Measures the moles on shoulders, like
megalithic boulders.
Oh, babe. I'm on fire. I'm burnin'...