AN: Screw not getting any reviews. One person asked for an update so here I am. Maureen belongs to Jonathan Larson, God love him. "Music Swims Back to Me" belongs to Anne Sexton. May they both RIP

Maureen Johnston, 26, Performance Artist

I'm not going to bother to try and describe Maureen the way I have with the others because quite truthfully there's no way to describe this sensual, socially conscious, slightly insane woman with red leather lips and piercing green eyes. All I know is she comes whirling into my bedroom waving her poem in her fist like she's flagging a taxi.

"I'm ready. I'm ready, Livvy!" she beams. "Can we do it now?"

She doesn't wait for an answer but flops down into a full laying position on her back with her crimped hair waving around her like a weird halo.

"Can we do it now, Livvy?" she asks again, sticking her leg straight up in an Ester Williams move and kicking like a rockette.

"Yeah, just a second, Mo," I laugh. Let me set up."

As I get out my recorder she waits with only the slightest degree of patience. The second I return and sit on the bed she bolts up into a ninety degree sitting position, holding the paper in front of her.

"Okay," she says, tossing her hair. "This is a poem by the brilliant Ms. Anne Sexton called 'Music Swims Back to Me.'"

Immediately after announcing the title she leaps to her feet, still on the bed, and holds the poem at arm's length in a sort of mock-Shakespearean pose. She speaks melodically, half singing.

"Wait Mister. Which way is home?
They turned the light out
and the dark is moving in the corner.
There are no sign posts in this room,
four ladies, over eighty,
in diapers every one of them.
La la la, Oh music swims back to me!"

She hollers the last line passionately, burying her fingers in her hair. I do my best to choke on a laugh. Such a drama queen, God love her. Maureen bends her knees methodically, then, still chanting that line begins to jump up and down and around across the leopard printed field of my bed sheets. I'm somewhere laughing and nervous at the same time, and scamper to sit on the floor. Maureen goes on, still hopping, arms in the air and hair flying wild.

"and I can feel the tune they played
the night they left me
in this private institution on a hill.

Imagine it. A radio playing
and everyone here was crazy.
I liked it and danced in a circle.
Music pours over the sense
and in a funny way
music sees more than I.
I mean it remembers better;
remembers the first night here.
It was the strangled cold of November;
even the stars were strapped in the sky
and that moon too bright
forking through the bars to stick me
with a singing in the head.
I have forgotten all the rest.

They lock me in this chair at eight a.m.
and there are no signs to tell the way,
just the radio beating to itself
and the song that remembers
more than I. Oh, la la la,
this music swims back to me.
The night I came I danced a circle
and was not afraid.
Mister?

Abruptly on that final word she stops, and looks toward the door as though calling 'Mister' back. I'm so stunned that it takes me a second to realize the reading is over. I clap for her, still laughing, and she takes a bow. Her hair touches her violent red toenails.

"Thank you! Thank you!"

"That was cool, Mo," I giggle as she vaults from the bed and sits next to me on the floor.

"Thank you, Livvy."

"Okay so let's talk about it. What makes this your favorite poem?"

"Honestly…I don't know," she laughs. "I love a lot of poets like this, yanno Miss Anne, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf. I don't know if there's a word for that kind of poetry, probably not. But all those writers are very important to me and what I do because they were poets and women during times when it was hard to be either. The world weighed them down and ended up destroying them and it took their deaths to make a bunch of idiots realize their true beauty and greatness and stuff."

All this is said in a rush of talk without as much as a pause. I'm glad this is being recorded because I know I missed at least a few words and I know each of them is important.

"But I think…" She slows down for a second and puts her claw like nails to her lips. "I think the reason this kind of poetry speaks to me is because it's nonlinear. It's not exactly about the words. It's more about the images and the emotions they foster. This kind of poetry has an urgency and a fire and that's why it rocks. That's how I want my work to be. I want people to come to my shows and feel whatever they wanna feel. Whatever matters to them most. They may not get my message or what I'm feeling but that's okay. As long as they get stirred up and psyched by their own feelings I've done my job."

She's actually panting a little when she finishes, but her face is glowing as though she's just won a marathon.

"So that's basically it," she says and before I know it she's getting to her feet.

"So is that good, honey? Can I vamoose? I'm sorry I'm being all rude but Desperate Housewives is on in ten minutes and I wanna change into my pj's."

I blink a little.

"Yeah sure, Maureen. Thanks."

"No problem. This was a blast. Mwuh!"

She kisses my cheek, leaving a big lipstick stain and blows out just as quickly as she came. As I get to my feet I hear her jumping the stairs two at a time. For a minute I just stand there. Then, when Mo's aura has dissipated from the room, I go to my dresser and get a tissue. I wipe the red blotch away from my face. I laugh to myself.

"Damn, Maureen," I mutter. "Just damn."

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