Runyon Canyon Poem by Jean Marie Ruiz

I am on a pilgrimage
to the waterless pool
where Errol Flynn swam.
Under an avocado moon
pearl-skinned women
soothed their wounds
with quick licks of the tongue.

They learned to speak French
with voices the color of barley,
the syllables rounded and teasing
like new breasts.
In Barstow they practiced
holding cigarettes and men,
shed their histories
took the names of flowers
Jasmine, Lily, China Rose.

They were not indigenous.
In childhood winters they danced.
Clammy leotards chafed
against their flat chests.
Pink satin slippers collided
with splintery floors.
Their mothers pretended to be happy.

In spring the Los Angeles sky
was a sepulchral blue
mentholated and deadly.
It filled their nightmares.
By day they could not remember
their grandmothers' cures
for narcolepsy and heartbreak.

I could have warned them
about the consequences of irony
taught them to recognize
the smell of their burning flesh.
In Runyon Canyon only the tennis court
was indestructible.
But the net is gone.
Its fine threads disintegrated
like reputations.