For Us
Alex Dimitrov
Material wealth and sensual pleasure
have a very specific function for us;
they compensate for other forms of poverty.
Neil Bartlett, Who Was That Man?
I. Self-destruct Queen
So this girl starts dishin about
excess this and over consumption that
and do I care about poverty in Latin America
or AIDS in Africa?
And so I tell her that today I don’t care but
every other day I have to, and not
in Africa but in my bedroom.
This hag is clearly unaware that
we invented safe sex
so we can keep on fucking
and keep on fucking up
and the breeders can leave us alone
until the next scapegoat election.
If we’ve survived eight years of Reagan,
two Bushes, and don’t ask because I
will tell you the truth about Clinton;
not poverty, AIDS, or another Holocaust
is going to stop me from investing in
Dior’s new fall collection Ð as I
walk down the street adding up
those fabulous figures of who and how much
of them I’m wearing.
The Barbie dolls we missed each Christmas then
are starting to pile up in dozens now.
II. Rentboys
He looks like rent to me
but he’s a trade boy.
He fucks like rent
and if he dealt off 5th
not in a coffee shop,
or rather in their bathrooms,
he would surely be a rentboy.
See the difference is so slight, so miniscule.
Rentboys are trade boys in drag,
warehouse the new bathhouse, cottage, alley.
Only now we fuck for free because we can.
Now we fuck because they don’t bother to charge us.
Why should we charge each other?
III. Nancy and Maryanne
I’m a married woman, honey!
I love him some days,
others I would trade him in
for new Manolos.
Most days he fucks me,
rarely he makes love.
I keep the house clean circa 1952
and the kids if kids there were
are fast asleep by ten,
promptly after Judy Garland has stopped singing.
And girlfriend I could go on singing,
and go on paying
the same tax dollars they pay.
Forced to watch the movies they watch,
listen to the music they play,
read the news they write and fabricate.
And isn’t it too bad that after all of that
they still have the final say.
I’ll be a married woman, honey!
One day I’ll get away.
