Celery Star

By Chez Cotton

At the bar in your leather pants and too-tight top, punching the air and whooping, you show the world the great time you’re having. I know you immediately, Birdie. Trademark fuchsia lips, gash-like now in a sunken, skeletal jaw; outrageous auburn mane, timid and tamed.

Flashback: following you, worshiping you slavishly—the most mega of mega fans.

And here you are, crunching celery from a Bloody Mary, almost unrecognizable. A true pro, you sense my stare and turn to the attention, fingering the glass rim in a way you imagine seductive. It isn’t, and makes me love you all the more.