Needling the Thread

The nurse says the blood
won’t drain from the butterfly

syringe because I’m dehydrated.
Six empty test tubes roll on the desk

as she tries the vein again, cursing
my stubborn blood, prodding the needle

deeper and sideways. I squint. She digs.
My head tingles like I have water

on the brain and I hold my knee
filled with fluid from pole dancing

10 years at the joint’s too long,
on my knees too often.

The vein breaks. She wants to poke
my hand now, where the blue Y

branches under my wedding finger.
The opposite of threading the needle,

needling the thread, probing inside
the delicate membrane, prodding.

The sting. The burn. The metal
inside the tube, constricting, resisting.

Still no drain. Try the other arm, wrap
the rubber band until it snaps and pinches,

make fist after fist until the blue river rises
below the skin and fills the flask labeled HIV.

Saturday

John shows up at the topless club around three
to sit with dayshift Ashley. I am nightshift Ashley
and we have shared the same locker and name
for five years. We’ve worked out an arrangement.
When I work days, I change my name to avoid
confusion for stage call, she changes hers at night.
Today, I am Jill, But the DJ insists on calling me
Monica Lewinsky. John is our regular, but mostly
he likes daytime Ashley. He teaches sociology
at a community college and speaks of his humdrum
job while tapping his thick wedding band on the rim
of his beer glass as if it tallies up the years for him.
He never mentions the ring. He’s drunk, slapping
my hand with several dollars after I dance my set.
He refuses to tuck them into my thong and slurs
that there’s little difference between a BS and a MS.
A BS, he says, is “bullshit”and an MS. “more shit”.
Spit splatters in my ear with every ssss and shhhh.
I’m in a hurry to get away, even though the smoke
and neon hold only three customers, their white shirts
glow like maggots cleaning time. Red, blue, and silver
nooses loosen around their necks when the room
sways a powdered nude. My shoe’s stack has wobbled
free from the sole and I have no glue so I’m limping
to the next table amused at my red spandex dress
reflecting off the top of a bald man’s head who wishes
he could feel my breasts. Only flesh and I don’t own
this body anymore than he does, even though his cold
hand annoys. And this dying is slow, it’s deliberate,
listless and it can’t happen any quicker on Saturday.

Jenni Russel is a retired exotic dancer, currently working on a prose/poetry memoir describing my ten-year career in the American sex industry. Her poetry has been published in Mipo Print and The Writer's Hood e-zine and The Melic Review. She is an active member in online poetry workshops and has won the PBL and IBPC Internet poetry competitions. This year, she was nominated for the Ruth Halls Younger Poets Award at Indiana University. Her interests include human sexuality and gender, literary theory, and popular culture. She is the interviewer for Mipoesias Magazine and currently resides in a small town in North Carolina with her fiance, Jack, and her pet bird, Percy Budgie Shelley.

Email: Jenni Russel

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