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enjoy this writing from Kyle Hemmings in the free cc&d 2010 PDF file chapbook: Avenue C			But you can also get this as a 6" x 9" perfect-bound ISBN# book! Click on the cover spread to order a copy.

Order this writing in the 2010 poetry collection book		click on the book cover for an author & poem listing, order the 5.5" x 8.5" ISSN# book order the 6" x 9" ISBN# book

On Being Mistaken for a Gay Go-Go Dancer at The Too Late to Die Night club, Avenue C

Kyle Hemmings

3 hours before show time
& i’m dancing alone on a floor
harder than rock candy but
slipperier than the china boy
in g-string & hot patchouli oil
telling me “hey, man, you’re doing
my job.” he bites my arm, his teeth
a residue of old canine flirtations,
his erection hard as flint & an orphan’s
frozen eyes under a trance of static
cling. kling, ping, my feet make
autonomous forays into this sweaty
cellar of someone’s massacre of night
i’m feeling as brave & reckless as
a children’s crusade of pickled hearts.

how can i tell china boy that my last
lover died during a heavy night sweat
when the comets exploded by his bed
leaving shards of memory trace
loose knots of life that i keep
undoing with all thumbs. i should tell
shady dancer to fuck himself with an apple peeler.
instead, i’ll do the core bleeding for him.
“see ya later, honey,” is all he says
as he rubs my rump in grand loose strokes.
i’m delighted he thinks i’m his pet rock
the one he forgot to name.

i will keep twisting & spilling & breaking
until i’m blind samson
bringing somebody’s pillar upon my back.

later, in a bathroom,
some tenement uptown
& beyond windows of any faith,
a veteran of all foreign wars
a prisoner of anorexic widows,
breaks my arm in three places,
claiming i’ve overcharged him
for causing him to bleed
in embarrassing places.
his mama must have
fucked him hard.

on the streets, deserted, the swirl of life
from distant cars, there is nothing, nothing,
but cobblestone & endless tar path,
white lines & limestone walls,
i am the last man surviving this planet,
collapsing between metal lattice and brick frame,
i listen to the piss of my own voice
giving birth to
rock & stone
rock & stone
rock & stone.

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