THE HOLLYWOOD RAGE PAGE

The unmade bed is a still-life study of the final moments of last night a Wee Gee crime scene photo of muffled sheets throttled comforter and bumped-off pillows that lie slumped over  like Crazy Joe on a cold slab of Little Italy concrete minutes after the hit. Judging by the evidence there was a struggle the work of a professional nightmare. The weapon was memories a slow-acting poison that no human can survive that caused the victim to be visited  in the final moments  by the pageant of lost loves who arrived as they always do one by one just as eyelids closed like evening primrose which know how to protect themselves from the ravages of the night

It’s my first birthday since you left which feels like evaporated centuries now Even though you had plunged into the tar pit of sorrow You called me  from the area code of memory  trying hard to sound like sing-songy-you before your vocal cords became as withered as ancient parchment And pain became your metronome For a few spare seconds we were toddlers again daffy and defiant spinning in circles in party clothes driven by the kind of bliss that is the provenance of dogs and the courtship dance of flamingos as we celebrated with a fallen comrade slice of cake and a pyramid of presents  That had wiggly ribbons like  The ones in your hair. When you said goodbye It felt like a solemn ritual like we were signing an armistice that spelled out the conditions of your surrender I could not let it end like that.  So I imagined you On the deck of the Mauretania In clever tweeds, long gloves, and hat waving with merriment to me on the moors as I watched you disappear into...