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Rachel Inez Lane

CATCH ME, ALFRED, I’M FALLING

Man, I could be a Hitchcock blonde. I’ll have shades of white gloves
             lined up like criminals
on my dresser, wear them when I cup a man’s face in my hands and hiss,
             Believe me.

Hitchcock blondes survive in the wild due to mirrors, and lips so red
             they stain sheets,
ties, love letters and breakup notes left on the table under the daisies
             next to the noose.

When I brush my hair I will be able to see my attacker out the corner
             of my vanity,
but since it’s a false setup, he is now my lover, we’ll have a picnic
             where I feed him

secret sandwiches on stiff stationery bread with Dior spread, straighten
             his lapel,
and sigh in his ear, Let’s go watch blah people through the binoculars.

He’ll stay up late drinking with cigarettes and undone ties, troubled by not
             knowing my
true story: How I grew up on a farm in Michigan where my father
             slaughtered pigs,

how my brother Theodore was oddly quiet and built bird houses. He won’t
             know the tired smile
my mother would give after she broke the necks of chickens I named. He’ll
             never know

how Hitchcock saw me in a Sears ad for dishwashers wearing my best
             oh, my! face,
my tricksy mmm face and flew in through my window, perched himself
             on my mantle

and taught me how to make a proper gimlet. We discussed Truffaut
             and the philosophy
of escaping in heels. He ordered me to write I am Grace in the air
             thirteen times with my foot.

Oh, I’d be a Hitchcock blonde with a pointy bra that could impale an infant’s eye.
What a life it is to be seen from onyx angles, but under velvet lights, to hide clues

like the bubble gum inside my alligator purse. I’ll peek through my glossy fingers,
watching as my man wrestles the killer to the ground, waiting for my cue

so I can start running to his musk, chin up, palms up and hair blowing
in the faint breeze of a fan a boy is hired to hold. A Hitchcock blonde who

dies elegant, because wouldn’t it be sad to grow old in an A-line dress when you
look like a B or a D or worse, an O? I’d rather be lifted onto the gurney,
             practically

floating. Hitchcock watching as I am covered in a satin sheet. He’s
             gnawing a cigar, holding
a lily, his arms around the sobbing boy with the fan, next to the brunette
             who scowls when

the EMT says, “My god, she’s light as a ghost.” Hitchcock replies, “Sir,
             she’s no ghost
but an angel, a blonde, the best victim, like virgin snow that shows the bloody
             footprints.”

–from Rattle #32, Winter 2009

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