there is a tiny mustache on the lip of the man who cleans the vomit from the corners of the subway platforms
it's a forlorn little mustache
it ponders a great deal
it has begun to paint beautiful portraits in its neat and hairy imagination
using all the different colors of vomit that the face it lives on is usually looking at
also, the colors of the walls of the rooms in the pornographic films
its face tends to watch after work
every morninng and every night
the mustache tries to combine the different shades of vomit into the perfect color
what is it?
certainly it is white and sky blue around the edges
(you would be amazed at what people put in themselves only to heave back up later)
but the middle, the middle
whenever it tries to think about the middle it remembers this station agent named Annabelle
its face had looked at Annabelle quite a lot back in the day
and the mustache was a real fan - she was peculiar, but cheering
but she had gotten a better job
everyone, the mustache thinks, gets a better job
except my face
my face is the worst face
the mustache thinks
unthoughtof and unloved
what a sorry, vomit-soaked lot in life
the mustache thinks
little does it know
that fifty stories up
there is another little mustache on the well-tamed face of a reclusive alcoholic billionaire
wondering the exact same thing
but more importantly
this mustache has found the center of the world's most perfect color
(seen at a gastronomy benefit in a plate of flowers, parsnips, and broth)
and prays
every morning and every night
that one day
it will learn to see what goes around the edge
