Marilyn Monroe's Nipples Pelle Cass Poetry

local_library Marilyn Monroe’s Nipples

by Pelle Cass

Published in Issue No. 42 ~ November, 2000

The dead star kept them in a cell,
the most precious jewels since dawn.
Each shown ruby on shiny pavement,
rain-soaked and elegant, like Audrey
Hepburn’s lips in The Vault of West Virginia.
They swore they’d be true to me,
but I caught them smoking weed
with Johnny Depp in the lobby
of the Devonshire. Her nipples
could never keep a secret.
You get up close to them
and they go all dynamic on you–
they start to look like something
out of El Lissitzsky.
Anyway, I let them tag along
to the Cineplex Odeon because
I felt sorry for them,
like two little sisters.
How can you go back
once you’ve seen them?
They aim to please and do so handsomely,
but now! Now!–imagine I’ve been talking
all this time of Edgar Hoover’s nipples,
wads of black chewing gum stuck to an eggplant.
Kiss me goodly, you fool. Turn off the projector.
It’s so hard to speak when there’s a huge happening in my chest!

account_box More About

Pelle Cass lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children. Before turning to writing, he exhibited photographs in museums and galleries in New England and New York City. He has published in The Melic Review.