(with her urgency)
she tore through alleyways
then ducked into a doorway
squeezing into nothingness
still, the cacophony of voices followed her…
no escape, no exit
she stooped picking up a rusty key under storefront mat,
a steel door vaulted, opening:
Ophelia made her move
leaping onto a splintered bottomless table,
she studied the deranged lines of the phantom faces before her…
“is this chase necessary?”, one of the ghouls complained.
“can't you see we're all exhausted?” another brother proposed
Ophelia couldn't decide whether to disembody
or completely remorph
back into a tigress
“we just wanted your autograph”,
Imogene,
the striped hipcat, blurted…
“don't split yet!”
"nah, I am the lizard queen, nobody here gets out alive”, strummed Ophelia
in spite of her paranoia…
just then another steel door vaulted, sealed this time,
signaling another ghastly holiday season
that'd begun in earnest
Lake Worth, Fl
2013