stevieqgray

Lenka

A Love Poem for a Stripper


Slovak blond

in fluid, perfumed contortions

of milk-cool skin and arching cat spine,

an endlessness of legs

terminating stiletto-tipped,

height boosted six clear inches

for the strut-sway-strut

through the reverberating swell of bass,

polished perfect in black light,

flexing and strobing in sleazy incandescence...

and that accent,

like some coded transmission

- urgent and indecipherable -

out of the enigmatic, broken heart of the Old Country;

a strangling entanglement of limbs,

torso pulled long and taut,

smooth-muscled,

ripples skip and quake

in the inferno of red-filtered light bulbs,

amid the whisper-soft fall of lingerie,

in the mist of sighs and moans,

atmosphere turned syrupy

with the heavy mouth-breathing hunger of strangers,

shivering feverish like sick dogs

for those pneumatic thighs and high, alabaster breasts,

sick with wanting to hold, reach, grab,

possess

full, implacable, unkissable lips;

hips grind in sweet, cruel, maddening parody

of something more:

this disambiguation of

willing flesh,

weak spirit...



Press close to me, devotchka.

Press close and let me believe you could want me.

Press close, in the heaving, panting, tongue-lolling half-light,

and convince me I'm not just another punter,

dragging desperate carcass to you

through the indifferent drizzle of some restless Tuesday night.

Armoured and invulnerable in your nakedness,

press close enough

and let me believe this could be everything.



In this moment,

meaningless and throwaway

and perfect for those very reasons...

in this moment,

that will be reduced by tomorrow to the fading linger of perfume on
soiled clothes,

the soft, pliant recollection of flesh and the knife-edge memory of
Eastern European cheekbones

and a name...

in this moment, Lenka, I am yours,

as much in love

as Keats ever was with his nightingale,

Coleridge with his opium,

Wilde with his crippling sin.

I am

in love with the tone, the scent, the lines of you. I am

in love with your cool, professional detachment. I am

in love with my total anonymity. I am

in love with the benevolence of your

impersonal, indiscriminating hospitality.

I am in love

with my own aching, thwarted frustration.



In this brief and beautifully disposable moment, Lenka,

there is nothing I need beyond this.