The DollHouse

Outside the strip club
dying crickets by the thousands
carpeting the sidewalk
splashed against the wall
like a thick stain

it’s their mating season
and there are visible footprints
through their mass

Inside they were on the counters
the chairs and tables and
after every set a thin goateed
man with a broom & rag
would clean the main stage
for the next dancer

on the side stages
the dancers used napkins
or just kicked the smashed corpses aside
or just danced them to a transparent pulp

the ones inside were more alive
jumping and crawling appearing
suddenly on a jacket sleeve
or floating in a dollar draft or
drowning mouthful by mouthful
in the urinal trough

I left early in a moderate panic
starting at small movements of
nothing in the corner of my eye
a touch of dust on the back of my neck

Outside they were there like a
terrible patient crowd waiting
to get into the show through the
woodwork

pulling away in my car a group of
angry cowboys stampede past
running fast at a young man with a
baseball bat smashing the headlamps
of a late model Dodge pick up truck