Her name is Halcyon.
and she dances for money
five nights a week in a peepshow
just west of downtown.
She doesn’t do drugs
and she doesn’t turn tricks.
When the tokens are pushed into the slot
and the screen rises
and one by slow one the veils slip to the floor
she armors herself in caricatures
that change with each familiar face
of every half life bastard
breathing hard behind the glass.
One likes her young.
One likes her willful.
One likes her to move
from pout to climax in just under 4 minutes.
One has money and likes for her to take her time.
One masturbates into a plastic grocery bag,
but takes it with him when he leaves.
All that separates her from them is transparency.
Her name is Halcyon.
She just dances for money
in a hard city
where burnt out philosophies
spit in the faces of dead last souls.
She dances in a peepshow
beneath the broken hinges of an unromantic moon.
It pays just enough to keep her rent and utilities paid,
with enough left over to keep her fed and clothed.
Once, she had dreams of being writer, like Joyce Carol Oates,
or the one that wrote Sex in the City.
After five years
of unpaid sick days, no insurance no vacation days.
After five years
of dancing, stripping
bending, stretching,
spreading, shaking
gyrating and masquerading for the lurid fantasies of men.
After five years,
it doesn’t pay to look ahead
and she can’t afford to look back
to see what she’s done.
All the stories she wanted to write
have been burned out of her
by the feverish eyes of dudes
breathing hard behind the glass
sucking up her every move.
Her name is Halcyon.
She keeps dancing.
She keeps putting on her armor of cartoon climaxes
and every shimmy shake seems more precarious
every time a token is pushed into the slot.
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