print previewback STEVE SCAFIDI
The Mustache
He grew a mustache huge and black
which he twirled
with carnauba wax
into a filigreed W with a curlicue
twirling forever
at each end.
It took up most of his face.
It shocked
the frontier
towns and it turned ladies
toward his gaze.
His voice grew.
He gestured with his hands like
an Italian stallion
or a toreador
from Mars. It wiggled with
energy and spoke
constantly of
the moon and stars. He kept it
until his friends
held him down
and cut it off with the broken
blue glass of
a whiskey jar.