To them, she was a porn mag
hot off the press,
dressed in a dangle
of sweat and beads,
revisiting a tarnished moon.
Her blood just borscht
to wash off ties.
To her, these men were
spinning dimes rolling
into dollar bills.
Finger flicks in slot machines.
Love's jackpot lingered
somewhere else.
A rocking ladder's meager step
to higher places of a heart.
Scribbled letters to a god
who might someday
just write her back.

To them, she was
a slaughter house for loneliness.
A Stradivarius to strum
as if its woody violin
were not a sack of castaways.
She danced with puppets
of their souls because
they paid her ears to hear,
her womb to be an open conch.
To her, these men were final digits,
ivory wilted daisy wheels,
couldn't stay erect and strong
in harbors of stale marriages.
Paddles at a mortal auction
raising hands to say
they mattered more than
women said they did:
dying piles of urban sand,
adding little to the sea.