She Doesn't Care What you Say About Her,
Just so Long as you Spell Her Name Right
-- by Kelly Cherry

Would she have fame?
Would she take tea and have fame with her tea?
Or roll a joint, famously?

She imagined approval, applause
A man not bored by her voracity.

In the house to be
Furnished in the future,
There would be intricate, quiet rugs,
Acres of books,
Someone playing the cello.

A late supper after the concert or play...
Outside, the people were clamoring for autographs.

The Madonna Syndrome:

Later, they went home,
And the man who was not bored
By the fact that she loved him
Allowed her to write her name
On his balls with the tip
Of her tongue as many times
As it took to make sure
He got it right.


Slutty
-- by Mark Bibbins

Life is inevitably disgusting
—Auden


We couldn't get near the bathroom
with all the models

holding back their hair
over the bowls.

The chef barely knew how to fling
parsley, so in the end no one mourned

the hors d'oeuvres' demise.
The champagne was another story.

A great mystery
to me as well you should be,

your legs seemed longer when
you cartwheeled under streetlights.

—Straddle me and I'll give you
all the scandal, all the sugar.

—Exactly what might one do
with all the sugar anyway?

Caress may still be the right word,
the streets dark and aflash

with rain sliding through the city
on its way. A third party wants

in, that warmth. You love
the noise stars make when they fall.

In the morning we are knocked around
by the wind of approaching trains.

You play the drawn-on eyebrow,
you play the figure-me-out—

I'd like something too,
to tear at me.