DANCE WITH THE DEMON WAKE UP WITH BROKEN HEELS
hustling is a fine thing in the big city
and sally was as fine a working girl
as any big city can manufacture —
the vultures in the clubs worship what
they don’t understand, like sex and
money, like pain; like women like her;
and she gave them what they craved
in exchange for plateglass diamonds
watered down champagne and tips
tips tips — yes hustling is a fine thing
an instrument of the city that separates
the rich from their money, like one of
robin hood’s merry men, a kind of rough
justice and payback, beyond reproach
beyond redemption — dance with the
demon you wake up with broken heels —
a fine and noble thing and it goes down
easy if you can stomach the ordinary stranger
in your face on a bar stool or a VIP lounge,
if you can keep the disgust under control,
and the tracks in your arm hidden from view;
use it lose it, spit it out, give them just
enough of a taste to tantalize (every
morning sally cruises in a yellow cab
past the sick and the damned counting
money), sally survives, she thrives, urban
decay is her AKA, the smell of the alleyway
lingers in her hair (every morning at 8:15
sally has a rendezvous with the bastard
who currently runs her life, down by the
waterside where the rotting teeth of
old immigrant piers lap the tide) — in
sally’s wallet are snapshots of all
the men who ever controlled her life:
skin heads hit men fast talking leather
queens drug dealers and of course her
daddy– and sally is paying men back
one at a time, in their own currency —
weak men soft men eager compliant
suburban men you can push around,
keep off balance, men you can take
for a ride, who will feed you and
give you plenty of drinks, who will
open up their fat wallets and
let you rob them blind
5.13.21