DAVID THORNBRUGH
BIKER NIGHT AT TEDDY'S TAVERN
Waiting for the WALK sign,
I’m almost run over by a woman
rolling her Harley up the curb cut.
"Excuse me," she says,
waddling the chromed beast
past East-West Books.
"Lordly and isolate satyrs"
gathered for beer and buffalo wings.
Angled motorcycles, mostly Hogs,
stretch from NE 12th to Roosevelt.
Exhaust blues the evening air.
In front of the furniture store,
a chrome-spoked Indian glitters.
Teddy’s teeth grin down
on vigorous, manly bustling,
even the women
in black leather.
I cross the street,
arm aching from the weight
of bagged zucchini, penne pasta and
garlic black olives
so salty that my wife grimaces
when she chews leathery flesh
off the oily pit.
¤¤¤
FAY WRAY
ON THE OBSERVATION DECK
OF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, 2004
Far below, New York lies like a smoky jungle.
Did she or anyone else on the RKO
sound stage seventy years ago
guess they were making myth?
King Kong was only a movie
like the Mona Lisa is only a painting.
The biggest heart carried the greatest of apes
to the top of the world’s tallest tower,
swatting biplanes out of the sky to protect
the woman he loved.
But you know the beast failed, fell,
and now the face looking into the camera
is wrinkled, frail, old, older than the pyramids,
the great drums throb and the naked dancers
stamp the weathered stone.
The great beast’s nostrils flared,
the beautiful young woman in silk evening gown
strained against restraining ropes,
light flickered against a screen
and something greater than mere box office was born.
Kong, Kong is coming, coming for the old woman
at the top of the Empire State Building.
Fay Wray looks into the camera
through the eyes of Ann Darrow
watching King Kong finger the bullet holes
the airplanes have stitched
across his mighty, puppet’s chest,
looking back at the woman he loves
before he lets go and falls.
"No, it wasn’t the airplanes,
it was Beauty killed the beast."
Contributor's Note
