Night Job
Posted on 25 February 2010
I’m putting on the red dress, Ma,
and heading back onto the trucker’s lane
to spread my legs (all hose pulled tight
and bra that pushes me toward heaven)
to do my due
and give a few (the tired and poor)
a swim along this once pure shore
(my closest pal the crack boy down on
his scarred fours who sells the minutes
on the city’s parking meters just off Fifth
at half the price).
Negotiate. I know my job, for everything’s
negotiable and what remains is that small
moment in the hay
where I must always
give my heart away.
2 responses to Night Job
hmm… a pretty sad but unfortunatly true one…too many of those these days I’m afraid.:(
This poem tears at my heart and yet, it somehow emparts hope.
I’m sure you have heard about the mass grave discovered in NM, 11 women and one unborn infant, all victims of not just a murderer but their profession as prostitutes, or substance users as well. Two of them were cousins, none of them were very old, all of them had families that loved them. I had worked with 4 of them when they were very young women.
I like the last line, for even a prostitute is a person, a woman. I find some solace in the hope that as a woman (or a girl) there was a least one moment in life in which she gave her heart away. (Because that would mean in that moment she felt a freedom in doing so.)
Thank you for completing your poem with this glimpse of hope.