Poetry of Issue 9: DANCE WITH THE DEMON

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