Lati ball dressed for the costume party with relish.
She wanted to look pretty.
She wanted to look mysterious.
So she took a mask from her closet of witches, tied the lace bow around her head.
"My" she said as she stared into the mirror.
She thought 'the men will ask me to dance, the men will forget the rest.'
Lati Ball went to the dance, the mask fit on her face tight.
The people did not reconize her. But she was the best!!
"oh who is this women!" they all cried,
"she walks like an angel, and floats like a swan!"  
She swept around the floor into another land.
The night gew late, Lati Ball had to stop inbetween dances to rest.
Then the clock rang 12 times, and a cake was brought out.
A cake of 12 candles.
Lati Ball wondered whos birthday it could be.
So she hurried to hear.
The hostest of the party laughed and said
"the cake is for you, the cake is for the best! now take this knife and cut some for the rest!"  
But before Lati could cut the cake, she wanted to make a wish!
So she leaned over the cake and said to herself
"i always want to be the Best; Better than the Rest!"
So she blew at the candles.
But the cake was made out of wood, and caught fire.
It burned her face, it burned her mask.
Soon the mask was part of her face,
and she looked like *death.

ix.

when you were eighteen
and i was fourteen
you handed me a blindfold
teethed with razors
because you say
truth is schizophrenic:
                                                                                 and angels are anemic
and my eyes are sweeter
than pomegranate
but your poison did not stop at
fairytale apples or lazarus
or hellish flowerets,
it re-mastered
left its tar around
your marrows.

iii.

when you were twenty
and i was sixteen
you gave me a Glasgow smile
on my tongue:
                                                                                like the pale harlequin
so i could bleed solace
and sympathetical commiseration
through every word
when ever you needed me

wheil you emitted a rosary
that encircled
clavicles, threading it to a hole you manifested
inside my sternum
because you belived
a heart was not neccessary
if a doll could
love with fingers

*

now you are ten years old
and i am seven years older
you ask me to write a poem
about you and artistry
but i am waiting
for the aestheticist
beside the violet car
with one ear and
debauchery

licking my fingers
and biting off your nails.