On touch of evil

Ivan Salinas

Photo: Nick Antonicello from yovenice.com .

It's the stink that stays with me
Hank Quinlen’s stink that is.
The lies in a movie set
all the makeup and made up stache
fake blood
and the thought
I'm watching it not the way
Orson intended it
after all.

Venice on celluloid looks a lot like the
border. Mike Vargas could be more Mexican.
Imagine he was a Mafioso taking a short
drive to Mar Vista to eat tlayudas on the
hood of a Cadillac. He’d die with a happy
stomach, killed by a sex worker facing
forceful eviction at Chavez Ravine.
Baseball, they say, is just what nuestra
señora reina de Los Angeles needs today.

Mike loved to play ball.
now he's gotta bite the bullet.

Let's forget
about the red ocean  behind us
& light
another cigarette