• all tomorrow's parties

　 　 Hush. A graveyard silence falls over the curtained screening room as candles lit for the Virgin Mary grow ever taller, wax dripping upwards. Crystal shards rend the veiled mystery of her satin pearly finish, dissolving it into spectral effervescence.

• Toy Mary, mother of trinkets:
• china blue votives & broken shards
• of macarons trail at your naked feet
• as satin dragons line your eyelids
• like steam ghosts curling out of a teapot.
• Your joyous son stomps in candy boots
• laced with licorice whips. Kiss, kiss
• & make bleed Mary’s weeping eyes
• backwards like blackened strawberries
• swelling into ruby youth. The jagged edges
• of Mary’s glittering crystal-dripping halo
• inscribe upon the Ouija board:
• O, ye fearsome fauns &
• ye beauteous bacchantes!
• Blood orange piñata candy for all.

　 　 Shaky intertitles flicker quick interludes between scenes of Elagabalus smothering Daisy to death with drifts of efflorescence: paper roses, painted roses, blooming in disturbed profusion in a roomful of antiques, sifting dust & cobwebs as they reach the high ceiling, claiming old frames & cracked vases; yellow bouquets light the lamps as stems & leaf-tips tint old tea-water, pollen dripping until the room reaches the height of scented rosy fever, the crushing weight of flowers! Asphyxiation by inhalation of their attar. The thorns sting & scratch to death. Jump cut to elegant ballroom minuets cresting with elaborate powdered wigs that sail past each other over grand pannier gowns, satin breeches, & stockinged finery, the veiled eyes of the ancien régime winking sleepily with oblivion, light as floating feathers, cotton-mouthed puffy. Marie Antoinette is reduced to a nodding flower, enchanting the marveling & applauding audience.

　 　 Resuscitated from her onscreen demise, bob-haired Daisy reappears among the party-goers at the after-movie birthday gala, which revolves around the nodding flower actress who dons a rose-thorn tiara on her platinum blonde crown. She blows kisses at the cake candles, her lipstick graduating in shades of blood, her breathless beauty shoddily masking massive psychological problems. She hovers on a high wire above broken glass flowers: delicate, fragile, troubled, blinking. Our ogling will preserve her tragic glamour.

　 　 Or not. A jealous rival starlet swings by on a drunken trapeze & spits a spray of seltzer at the pretty face. Elagabalus bums a cigarette from the actress’s fallen clutch as the final credits roll Dottie Parker’s Résumé:

• Razors pain you;
• Rivers are damp;
• Acids stain you;
• And drugs cause cramp.
• Guns aren’t lawful;
• Nooses give;
• Gas smells awful;
• You might as well live.

　 　 Meanwhile, Rose-on-the-Fur attends Madame Bluestocking’s salon of dilettante courtiers & fairytale royalty, dethroned duchesses & other former nobles decked out in sequins & lace, whose wealth have been distributed by an increasingly mercantile economy. They snack on hors d'œuvres served on golden plates. “You hardly exist,” echoes Belladonna the biloquist, getting plastered on strawberry wine as she amuses the laughing party guests with a red-feathered parrot perched upon her shoulder. A princess socialite with thick false lashes on her eyes & glitter dandruff encrusting her scalp plies a wide paintbrush dipped in pink paint onto her nude skin. Tiny pisces nibble the edges of mad Ophelia’s river-damp nightgown, water crashing & frothing in hidden caves, signposts paving the way to the eternally young maiden with sequins for eyes & ribbons for brains, her endlessly insatiable guts digesting the most towering cakes you’ll ever see with frosted roses raging laced with baby’s breath. The party reaches a fever pitch as drunken Rose casts a spell with her little performance piece: lifting her skirt to peel off her panties, underneath lurk fire-breathing dragons & roaring choruses of angels, multiple video screens of thunder & hellfire playing loudly & simultaneously before a window of fatal error pops up:

• LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH’ENTRANTE. ✕

　 　 Daisy falls asleep among her old clothes in a walk-in closet: an old brown knit coat with belled sleeves, a soft faux-denim skirt, strapped gray ombré platform high heels, shabby disheveled twinsets, cardigans over pleated skirts, sensible but oversized sweaters. The racks of clothing roll away on creaking wheels to reveal a tall cheval mirror that stood hiding in the closet.

　 　 What if I were to step through it, like Alice? Daisy-not-so-Sure presses her fingers against the surface of the looking-glass, which melts & shimmers under her touch. She reaches out her hand & grasps almost nothing. Ephemeral wisps elude her: the swish of a fish, a thread of mermaid hair, jellyfish tentacles that hardly sting. A continuous feed of diaphanous netting; all underneath are even more veils. The æther is a preservative & anæsthetic, but Daisy struggles to break through. The other side of the mirror reveals darkness & greenery. The night is a black swan, starry-eyed & shimmering with piles of stars, gold & silver stars, precious beads, & crystalline drops. Druzy nebulæ, glittery constellations conflagrating into mythical figures with wings that cleave the sky. Mesmerized, Daisy steps through the portal & into the tall unmown grass of the castle’s front lawn, just as Rose-on-the-Fur tumbles out of a friend’s gilt carriage onto the nearby driveway.

　 　 “O, it’s you,” slurs the young crone as she flings a black stiletto heel at Daisy’s head & misses. Daisy doesn’t even blink. Two maidservants pick up the shoe & help Rose back to her iridescent casket as Daisy heaves a sigh behind the castle doors.

• This is not the end, I think.

marginalia: but pampered wisps do not a cloth doll make ❀ why is Daisy forlorn why does she live with Rose ??? katabasis a self-imposed exile Daisy's false orphan state gives way to uncomfortable revelations about herself. she clutches her chrysalis, a mourning veil. the cocoon swaddles her in ribbons. she finds herself molting, a renewal. the flare of a strutting peacock, its jewel-tones shimmering.