Reflections in Porcelain

This was my gig: white lace apron,

cut-out bra and crop. I crouched above him

every Thursday in the marble bathroom,

pissed on his bare chest as let him lick me dry.

He wasn’t the first to love the thought

of the redness of a bottom, mark of a heel.

So when my ex dropped three tabs of sunshine

and decided I’d screwed his best friend,

I thought I knew what to expect. Hadn’t

the drag queen across the street, pistol-whipped,

sat silent on her folded raincoat? There is nothing

anyone can do she said, and the bistro patrons

hailed their cabs and stepped over her.

And when he held me dangling over West End,

window wide onto the avenue, I know the woman

outside the building with her collar open, back to God,

heard me get it as I prayed for one less smack against the sill.

Source: Adonis Garage (The University of Nebraska Press, 2005)