Jenni Russell

 

To the poets whose books I've stolen
at Barnes and Noble in Amherst Mass.


If I pay $24.95 for your hardcover,
that is the equivalent of one lap dance.

Now in case you don’t understand,
that means for 5 minutes I pretend

to be the giddy ditz who always smiles,
the Jezebel with a crank up pussy

who enjoys smacking her chapped lips
and making 50 dicks hard every night.

I have to apply my lip gloss so it looks
like I’m ready to suck, by that time

I can’t even see them anymore. I look
past their skulls and through the wall

into the parking lot where a kitten licks
drips from the bottom of a dumpster.

A guy standing behind me won’t stop
sliding his sweaty and cold beer bottle

up the crack of my ass, I haven’t seen
his face, but he whispers he loves me.

Tonight, I scrub G-strings with Brill-O.
Tomorrow, pay a dancer to corn row

my hair while I read your stolen poems.
My scalp yanks and twists with no regret.