KRISTY GORDON
Self-Portrait of a Lion as His Own Mistress Peking, 1926
It was Baldcock bringing me the news his shiny pate weaving in and out of rickshaws
even with my poor eyesight he was a pink thumb above the surge of market scoundrels
the Sunday morning whores in gabardine the slabs of whalers’ meat moulting
my leg was acting up again throbbing at the knee so Fang Liu propped me under my good arm
as I hobbled into the streetdust never was the dawn so visceral
a sentience so full of onomatopœia somehow Noel Coward was singing in my head
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only all the distractions did little for me as soon as I made light of Baldcock’s fat face
even Fang Liu’s sturdy fisherman’s hands could not contain me and I crumpled
like a winded accordionist coughing spluttering among the padded and bound
Baldcock’s eyes: the streaks of opium red did little to mask the inconceivable
as he and Fang reached down to grapple me upwards wrench me from my earthly sockets
my face mirrored in Baldcock’s own I had my Dorian Gray moment a dilapidation
tryptiych: But my heart does not in any way agree with the perception of my eyes
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