HOME | DD

Description
i. American Hot Bods, Wilmington
There is a feeling of chromosomal solidarity:
no men before 11,
all women, 18-75, crushed together,
eyes meeting as we try on
the male gaze,
enjoy the lens.

I expected to ethnograph,
catcall, tuck some dollar bills,
but twice I interfere,
touch the objects of my studies,
drag a hand over the sweat-sticky,
hairless torsos onstage,
a man in a pink velvet thong
whose name I’m not expected to cry
growls “You are sexy, truly,”
another whose leathered member
threatens to unshoulder my dress
because that’s what I paid for.

ii. Teasers Men’s Club, Durham
The neon pink sign out back is broken –
intentionally? –
to say Tease Me Club.
We are the odd couple –
him in a suit vest and white shirt,
leather on his feet,
beard immaculate,
me in a black dinner dress,
boots red-laced, up to my knees
in buckles;
I’m sure they wondered.

Dark hair, dark eyes,
sinuous to metal with her
one black garter
tight around those curves,
and we achieve simultaneous
“Gawd dayum.”
He can’t touch, just
fund, so I tuck his money in,
tell her that the gentleman
would like a word.

Rob Zombie growls
somewhere beyond us
while she puts my hands
where she wants
and I kiss the patchouli’d skin
of her breastbone,
nipples between the fingers
of my supplicant hands,
feeling his grey-blue gaze
tracking us, enjoying
what he’s paid for,
her nails raking down my neck.

Description
i. American Hot Bods, Wilmington
There is a feeling of chromosomal solidarity:
no men before 11,
all women, 18-75, crushed together,
eyes meeting as we try on
the male gaze,
enjoy the lens.

I expected to ethnograph,
catcall, tuck some dollar bills,
but twice I interfere,
touch the objects of my studies,
drag a hand over the sweat-sticky,
hairless torsos onstage,
a man in a pink velvet thong
whose name I’m not expected to cry
growls “You are sexy, truly,”
another whose leathered member
threatens to unshoulder my dress
because that’s what I paid for.

ii. Teasers Men’s Club, Durham
The neon pink sign out back is broken –
intentionally? –
to say Tease Me Club.
We are the odd couple –
him in a suit vest and white shirt,
leather on his feet,
beard immaculate,
me in a black dinner dress,
boots red-laced, up to my knees
in buckles;
I’m sure they wondered.

Dark hair, dark eyes,
sinuous to metal with her
one black garter
tight around those curves,
and we achieve simultaneous
“Gawd dayum.”
He can’t touch, just
fund, so I tuck his money in,
tell her that the gentleman
would like a word.

Rob Zombie growls
somewhere beyond us
while she puts my hands
where she wants
and I kiss the patchouli’d skin
of her breastbone,
nipples between the fingers
of my supplicant hands,
feeling his grey-blue gaze
tracking us, enjoying
what he’s paid for,
her nails raking down my neck.