We’re all Sisters of the Pleiades — limber, almost-deities,

out here dancing with our assets glowing

like the ends

of cigarettes, like

Schiaparelli silhouettes,

our skilled pirouettes and

lithesome fingertips

spinning Fate

in the palms

of our hands.

Sexed-up angels,

winged goddesses

up on our catwalks, we

set the sun to swooning

and the moon to mooning,

but the true secret is…

Fortune and her

kaleidoscopic wheel

                                                                            — while a fun ride –     

                                                            is always a strumpet.

                                             And we’re ever one misstep,

                              one missed rep,

               from being tumbled,

then ground to

quintessence

of dust,

just as the next big thing in her slender, goodly frame struts and frets her life up on the wire.

So goes the providence of a songbird.