The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 2/10/09 (warning: graphic language, NSFW)

[BlueIris]

"Gig at Big Al's"

There is a special privacy on stage.
Wearing little, then less, then
nudity's silver high-
heeled shoes, I dance to myself: the men

posed below at tables
with assessors' gazes and the paycheck's
sure prerogatives are dreams
I've realized, my chosen

people, made-up eyes, my fantasies.
I pull down dark around the room.
I turn on sex's juke two-step.
I set foot on the spotlight's

isolated space and grease
my hips and lick my legs. With a whip
lash of gin in the first row anyone
can beat around the bush, can buy

my brand of loneliness, all possible
circumlocutions of crotch. No one
can touch me, by law
I cannot touch myself. So none

of it is public, not until
in one side door
on his soft shoes
my lover comes to watch.

—Heather McHugh

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. that takes a nice turn. n/t

[BlueIris]

2. That's what I say. nt

[BlueIris]

3. Kick.