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CASTING CALL
My wife . . . she also used to be . . . some kind of entertainer.
An Australian speaks of his Filipino wife in the film
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The woman they are looking for
Is a well-proportioned dwarf.
Madder than a dingo, she salivates
At the sight of dog meat. She slithers,
Much of her seen under fake leopard skin.
Curses leap like fish from her foaming
Mouth. She keeps her husband,
Who towers over her, tame on a leash.
A true artist on stiletto stilts,
She also can do magic tricks
Like making things pointed or round
Appear and disappear from her
Spangled orifices.
They could not come to the audition,
Those same women who were once
Lured by photographs of bearded men
Posing by their desert kingdoms.
Ana sends her regrets:
Her husband has scattered
Her body parts
Throughout the sand.
She is busy, as she was in life,
Making handicrafts,
Turning her own bones
Into bird cages and wind chimes.
In her final scene, they'll have
The men jeer through beer-haloed lips,
Their applause sounding to her like
Unseasonable rain or welcome gunfire.