Sexy
April 2008

CONTENTS

To Remember a Madam | Thomas Crone

Romeo Void | Chris King

Weathering Storms | Judith Kelvin Miller

April Kodiak  |  by Stefene Russell

O, God Let Heaven Be A Burlesque Show | Melissa Singleton

Gossip | Orhan Veli

 

 

April Kodiak | by Stefene Russell

April, April, Men love you!
Your name written on a dollar in blue marker
and taped above the bar.

Men dream about you into their beers.
Don’t listen when they call you powder slut
Walk tall in your pink puffy vest
write your manifesto on the bathroom stall
take your time while all the other girls
gossip and hop on one leg

Write it with that black felt-tip
the one you use to write your number
on napkins, so the digits fuzz and bleed
and no one finds you.

Cover an empty cereal box with wrapping paper
leave a slot for valentines
Stand in the bar all proud
inhale the smoke that makes you stronger
and collect that affection

You live in a corpse of a town
full of singing corpses
But remember: you’ve been elsewhere
and remember: you used to be third mouse
from the left in bee heaven
And remember why you said:
“I’m going to be the Whore of Babylon
for Halloween this Year.”

BIO

Stefene Russell was born in Salt Lake City, but will never leave St. Louis. She is working on a cycle of St. Louis poems that do not include any cameos of the Arch, though there are plenty of ghosts, attics, moss, rocks, cars and bricks.