Nocturnal Resurrection
The city had a daytime nightclub’s face,
A stolid look like Mussolini’s brow
In plaster cast. Who would have guessed this place
Perceived itself the figurehead, the prow
Of culture in its colonnaded past?
Perhaps it thinks so still, pathetic femme
Fatale, aged movie star who thinks her last
Cosmetic surgery makes her the glam
Queen which she was on celluloid. The streets
Are salty like a Dead Sea dawn with pros
(About as fetching as Jane Russell’s teats
In 2010) and sweat of gigolos.
At night the club, though, comes alive with glitz,
With hustlers, dressed as young girls, doing splits.