I was sitting in Little Tijuana late one night with two friends who were lovers, who are now married. Valentines Day was a few days away. They wanted to go to Sexworld, a kinda touristy 24 hour store that sold all types of sex paraphernalia/clothes/art, for two reasons: 1) they wanted to get each other a present 2) I had never been there, and they thought it would be funny to take me there. So we went, and walked around - I noticed a wall of glass boothes, and there was one woman working behind the glass that night, the other 'aquariums' were empty. She was reading a book and seemed pretty absorbed, there was a lot of people there that night but no one was paying for her show. Then, a group of tipsy Fray boys crammed into the stall and began to loudly ask her obnoxious questions. I wrote this poem a couple of days later. I showed it to a friend of mine who had worked there behind the glass, and asked her what she thought. She said it was pretty good for a dishwasher poet who had never worked in the sex industry, but she told me I got something wrong: you can smoke cigarettes behind the glass. Everybody's a critic. Sexworld The booth is 3 tight walls and a window to the world. She is wearing strappy black heels and little else. The little black velvet pillow does little for her. Her legs cramping, she is thinking about a cigarette, she is careful not to touch the glass, she can't decide if she's half empty or half full. A group of wobbling frat boys cram themselves into her stall, their eyes wander from her legs to the toys arranged in front of her, they ask her how much, if it will be cheaper if all ten of them watch at once. The few who aren't quite drunk beyond reason and who actually realize she lives a life outside the confines of glass and velvet avert their eyes from hers, they are afraid she may recognize them some day, on the street, in an Uptown bar, in a flower shop on Valentine's Day. They don't know that, by now, they all look like sheets of glass to her, sheets upon sheets of glass that form a world of walls upon walls of glass. Let us not be overly romantic. She does not think of herself as saint nor sinner but, like most of humanity, uncomfortably between. During the dead hours, when she feels like sand choking the slim neck of an hour glass she reads her Elementary Astronomy book, wonders if she can tough out the rest of the semester. But even as she reads of perhelion and aphelion, the difference between umbra and penumbra, elliptical galaxies, white dwarves, the Olympus Caldera, her mind dreams a fireplace its blaze cascading haloes of heat across a hardwood floor till the warmth forms snug rings around her bare toes. Perhaps this fireplace dream lights an imaginary cabin up north, a cabin with no windows so she can wiggle her toes nakedly with no fear of lust or condemnation frosting the glass. Alone, to herself, she will not wonder why no one ever asks her, quite simply how her day was. 2-13-99

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