The showgirls untime time, faces mirrored: duplicating, re-duplicating—
           they’re set loose and iconic: mid-seventies, the Lido de Paris,
                        unclothed but for G-strings, Marie Antoinette beehives
                                    frolicking in a set-up of Versailles or writhing
behind bars in the mass fluorescent jail scene, blinking. No doubt
           the Stardust had the best signage: its incremental diamonds
                        zipping up into my panties, into the vulva of the young girl
                                    lonely. Backstage, their eyes were wedged
open by giant hideous lashes. The moles and snagged body stockings garish.
           Their mouths laughed, clutching cigarettes. They brought kittens,
                        casseroles. My step-father called them the girls—though some—
                                    the ones who sang—were way past their prime. Love
had its way, crept into the Lido themes: fiery, jealous tiki dances
           a languorous etude with a wig-bedecked couple on a swing.
                        Archival & quaint those towering, melon-breasted beauties—
                                    so sexless, they generate remorse, implode their dark stars
when the Stardust goes down, when what we build goes down, soft
                                    in the roof of my mouth.