do not disturb my vagina sign
He swore she tattooed a blade across her chest
and hung elephant bows on her nipples
causing a ripple in his testicular’s gravitational pull
’cause her womb hung off hinges
with a do not disturb my vagina sign
dangling from a brass knob resembling a penis
I thought to knock twice, room service, my dear
but the reply came back unresponsive
I pictured her busy applying lipstick
and shaving her armpits with a machete,
so I leave her lunch on the floor
in front of her door and from across room Four
where a man had attempted to score
with her the night before
but she blew him off like a dirty flake
lingering on her shoulder
I figured that maybe it was
the color of his hair that reminded her
of darkened days and those filthy romps
under a thrash metal moon
Or maybe perhaps it was the cheap suit
with its pricey tie
that set the mood into an orgy
of prohibition whiskey
and dying stars like roustabouts working a circus
Or maybe it was just her bitchy air
acknowledging the cuisine then sticking
a pedicured toe into the clam chowder
as if testing the fahrenheit in a pool
of second-hand water before diving in
head first then opening eyes to a scene
trapped in emptiness only left with the sound
of her eardrums taking her lobes hostage
Shift’s over
And I say this isn’t a poem of horror, my love,
and I spend the rest of my dinner spending
the last of my toilet tokens in a Wendy’s restaurant
on an old woman who wouldn’t stop peeing
my fortune into a porcelain pipe
where shit dreams awaited to be flushed
Servitude is a nightmare that never ends,
and you, dear shrink, cannot think of alternate
ways to charge me for your expertise in the nothing
that only exists in a placebo pill
I’m breathless, you’re not crazy,
he’ll go on to analyze, scribbling on his tab,
thinking of alternate ways to stuff me into his nut house
but the bees are going into extinction, I rant, and I feared
who’d be left to make me my honey?
And he’ll just snicker and construct
a constellation forged by dragonflies
whom only add to the insult
The knock is the same,
the cuisine is the same
but the men are different
they appear like various shades of balloons
determined to make her happy
There’s a man weeping through a peep hole
an hour later he opens the door to me standing there
with clean linens in hand, I wanted her,
he said, what’d you think?
I just shrug my shoulders and say
sometimes men need to cry,
particularly over the things
they can’t have