The old man decreed
we all need to get with the times
but since time immemorial it is us three sisters
who have been doing all the dirty work,
flying numbly through the brisk December air
our spangled cloaks and tennis skirts flapping
in the wind (what a downfall,
what a decadence).

When once we would have burst into the night
like a murder of crows, sharp mouths meant
to puncture the carotid of this world
and bring our master back his blood tribute,
now we are the dolled-up girls
one invites to their party for a guaranteed good time.

(What are humans but an amalgamation
of meat and electricity?)

Movie directors and music producers
everyone who wants to be someone cramped together
under smoke and strobe lights,
their hearts pushing blood much quieter
than the resounding rush of desperation
and shattered diamond dreams we now feed on.
This is the new currency, the new delicacy,
Hollywood born and bred.

We dance with them, feeling a little bit like flying
or falling, our old lives, our own aspirations,
merrily merrily fading down a stream of Bloody Mary
(virgin? Don’t make us laugh) and hallucinogenics.

Hours or earth rotations later we take the long way home
thrumming with stolen energy, high heels hung from hooked claws,
gleaming tarmac warm under the arches of our feet
pale faces blanched by streetlights.
We walk by what once was 10050 Cielo Drive,
site of the Sharon Tate murders,
and can’t help thinking of the Manson Girls who committed them.
They were a family like us
bound by blood, only not the red in our veins.
Their leader was a narcissist getting his harem, oh-so-carefully groomed,
to do his gory work.
(Now, where have we heard such a story before?)

Shall we go inside and feed? one of us asks
but the rest shake our heads something mournful,
something weary.
We fly to our hillside castle mansion,
back to our leader and director of every frame
of our silent-film lives.
Our nails grow sharper than usual,
our teeth aching to bite down and reclaim what’s ours.
What will the blood we spill across our front door
write for all the world to read?

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