Its Alive

There is a place where the chainlink fence and the overgrown grass sprouts out of the ground as if from the same root, behind foliage sits classic car after classic car like Lucky Strikes packed neatly into a box. 

Someone loved each one of them, now they lay in cemetery.

Each is a different flavor. A green Monte Carlo, a red Mustang, a blue El Camino. A blonde, a brunette, a redhead.

They are all dead beauty queens, laying in their chain-link coffin. Chrome rusts like rotting flesh. mangled frames slowly decompose and crack. Their paint greys like hair, once colorful, vibrant and exploding with life.

I could imagine what it would be like to be behind the wheel of a 70’ Monte Carlo, but this one was long dead. I could imagine what a date with Marilyn Monroe would be like. I could imagine the dinner, the drive-in theater, and even lover’s lane if I played my cards right. But either way, digging up Marilyn Monroe would not mean she would be the same. Dead is dead.

I could never accept death, so I’ll dig up the corpse of Bettie Page and bolt on the legs of Marilyn Monroe. I’ll stitch on Jane Mansfield’s breasts and screw in Rita Hayworth’s shining teeth. I’ll weld on Betty Grable’s glutes and air up Brigitte Bardot’s lips. Then I’ll spray on a brightly colored dress and drop a gorilla’s heart into her chest.

She’s alive.