--- M A R T I N   O T T

In the Hollywood Forever Cemetery
late on Sunday night with gates sprung,
we enter a iron ribcage with pocked
fontanels, the sky a stained velvet robe.

A few hundred of us gather to watch
"All About Eve," projected
above tombstones and sepulchers,
the screen dwarfing our blankets.

The blades of manicured grass
poke through impromptu picnics
draping Rudolf Valentino, Jayne
Mansfield and John Huston.

Gangster Bugsy Siegel lies here,
dreaming of cameras shooting Vegas
in a neon crime spree, while wind
whistles playfully over Mel Blanc,

with the epitaph, "That’s All Folks."
In the film’s blank spaces we giggle
at our raspy icons who still float,
Hollywood stars beneath their feet.

Paramount rises majestically behind
us, the way all studios and cemeteries
here are butted against one another,
pale lovers joined in cinematic wash.

On the screen, tin pan and sharp
barbs huddle us in unactable unrest.
We hide under wool and flesh in this
fortress of tiny performers, giant shades.