My heart was your bell jar
You left it smeared with
Shit and blood
Crawling with slugs
Crying for you is like
Being pissed in the face
By a drunken cop
You’re the filth on my skin
The rot in my veins
I want someone else
to hate and despise you for me
I feel dirty enough
For loving you
Afterwards, you lay, your stomach
covered in the salt of my desire
and purred, still not content
but well on the way
against your fingers.
I kissed you again, stroked
your neck where it was most flushed,
and when you came, bit back
the scream (so as not to wake
my parents), you shivered, long
and red,
then drifted off to sleep.
She moves my beer bottle out of reach
and says “I have a clumsy ass.”
Spread across the bar she scissor-kicks
and grabs her ankles then cradles her tit.
Some Japanese writing is tattooed
a few inches to the left of her g-string.
I try to make out the design
while she makes sexy stripper faces.
She points at the ink and says “Mother first.”
“As in?” I say.
She crawls back on to the dance floor.
“As in” she says “I have kids at home.”
I take a swig off my beer
and stop to applaud the moment.
She leans in to me with a smile
her tits pushed together like a basket.
I give her one dollar for the performance
another dollar for the kid at home.
She thanks me with a kiss on the cheek
then pets my head like a small poodle.
Taking a Break
She said, “Hey, man.
I think we should
take a break.
You know,
give each other
some space.”
But,
what I really
think she meant
is that we should
just fuck other people
because there’s plenty of fish
in the sea, and that shit
is deep
af.
You are the dirty knife
that slits my throat
on all my birthdays
Then
cuts my cake
‘Blow out those candles now, bitch’,
I read your lips
I always loved
your sense of humor
You just never loved mine
Happy Birthday to me
so Louie and I packed it in
and headed for the Strip Club in Smithton
and it was snowing outside
beautiful flakes messing the roads
and the owner said
“I just sent home my best girls”
and one of the three remaining strippers
said “Fuck you, Frank”
and walked towards the stage.
Louie and I handed over 20 bucks
and the owner said “I’ll take $10
because of the weather”
and we each got 10 back
and found chairs around the stage
which was not much of a stage
and the walls were all aluminum
and the floor was muddy
and flecked with road salt
and Louie said “This really is a dump”
and I said “You never noticed that?”
and the women danced a little
which is to stay stripped a little
and I handed over some singles
and Louie handed over some singles
and the blonde stripper—
well, the older blonde stripper—
said “You can beat it
in the back room for 15 dollars”
and I said “Sounds great”
and Louie just sort of sat there.
A couple other women
came from the back room
and they were talking about
how expensive it was to get your nails done.
I got up to head to the back room.
The strippers concerned with their fingernails
started to give the same pitch
to Lou about beating off.
Louie is a more complex person
than I am, and nurturing too
and significantly more masculine
which also adds to his kindheartedness
so there were things for him to consider
like the impact of prostitution on women
ages 38-56 during a snow fall
on a Thursday night in Smithton
whereas I accept that most people
make choices in their own best interests
and jerk-jobbing at a strip club
probably beats working at McDonalds
or sitting in a cubicle somewhere
so I headed for the booth
and paid an extra ten dollars
for the stripper to finger
her ass and pussy at the same time
and she was nice, knew all
the right words and sexy sounds
and when I came she said
“Did you have fun?”
and I said “I did, thanks”
and I went back to the stage
and she did too
and I pulled up a chair
and she sat crossed legged
her robe covering her lap
and she said “Your buddy’s back there
with Sheena and Tina”
and I said “Sheena and Tina?”
and she said “It’s a winter special”
and laughed and I said “Oh”
then Louie appeared
but not Sheena and Tina
and Louie said “Let’s get out of here”
and I said “Sure”
and the stripper said “Thanks
for the extra ten bucks”
and I said “You’re great at what you do”
and she said “I know.”
Outside, I asked Louie
why he wanted two strippers
and he said “I don’t know”
and I said “What’d they do?”
and he said “Giggled”
and I said “What’d you do?”
and he said “Nothing.”
Then he said “I asked them some questions”
and I said “That was a nice thing to do”
and the snow was everywhere now
the flakes bigger than pennies
and the road reflecting white
and Louie said “At least
they’ll have money for manicures”
and I said “At least there’s that.”
richly saturated colors swept
into her trail of
undulating frame & torso
then infused
throughout her wispy,
pulsating face
& intensified to a
pitch of
turbulent
flame
arms, legs
& hair converged
into flowing
movements of
sinuous trails that
melted
into
air
