QUEEN OF THE CROWN
From a painting by Andy McCready
- Jenny Powell
She's Queen of the Crown on Rattray Street,
glittering with a grunge-punk charm,
royalty oozing as soon you meet
from the jug in her hand and loose cigarette
angled as if she's forgotten it's there;
she's a comic book character flat in the frame
until darkness descends when she's studded in black, her hair
touched up with paua shell pink, it's part of the game
called `Guess Who I Am'. You'll never decide,
she won't let you in. She's screaming her head off,
thumping the floor on her steel-capped ride,
to `Bad Girl Demented' and `Death Bed Scoff'.
Queen of a fading patchwork beauty,
drama queen, moving queen, queen of the night,
upholding rebellion's her Rattray Street duty;
invade the realm and she'll put up a fight.
• Jenny Powell is a Dunedin teacher and author. Her latest collection is VIET NAM: A Poem Journey (Wellington: HeadworX, 2010).
