-the Striptease Artist-

Route 6 east toward a strip-joint called the "Hangars"

With a carload of guys who play Buck-Buck
In the park across the street from my house.
Not long before this ride to discovery

We'd hide from our mothers under the porches
When the streetlights came on.

Soon, we’re sitting at a sticky, rolled
And pleated leather-like booth

Anticipating an adult woman who'll
Take her clothes off for us to the sounds

Of a swishing snare, pizzicato bass

And muted trumpet.

She’ll be wonderful with sequined pasties,
Tassels swinging

Clockwise and counterclockwise propelling
Her tits into the heavy atmosphere burning our eyes.

We’re too young to drink.
But we got inside because Hank Lozon's Uncle
Manages the joint on weekends.

This is where it’s dark, sweltering and red all over.

It’s like being inside an inflated parade balloon

And I don’t think we should eat anything.
But our waitress looks good and the M.C.'s

Cracking a few jokes into his mic whose volume
Is set to Amphitheater.

He introduces the next stripper as “Trixie Dixon”
And leaps from the stage in a single bound
To tepid applause from the scattered in attendance.

Then the red-lead atmosphere is spotted

With a crack of white light

And there’s Trixie, sitting at the edge of a stool
Confiscated from the near-vacant bar,

Costumed in trench-coat  and soft fedora

Whose brim folds softly to cover one eye,
The standard lit cigarette tucked between her lips,
Redder and wetter than a Bloody Mary.

Trixie's routine is billed to be that of a Private Eye.
But I'm the only one in the house who sees
An otherworldly impression of the Liquor Salesman. 
The downbeat to jazzy music

Cues her performance.

Trixie leads with a leg slipped into
A black nylon stocking pushed out
Across the floor

Down to the toe of her pump
Allowing the trench-coat to peel back
Like the skin of an over-ripened banana.

Our young waitress ignores her, dealing
Out carbonated drinks realizing the booth's
Occupation of potential deadbeats.
She's not too far removed from my age. 

I want to be closer to Trixie.
But beginning the routine, the stool

Slides from under her

And she falls on her ass to the hard stage,
The fedora rolling from her head into her lap,

Embers of ash from the cigarette still clenched
Between her lips extinguishing in her hair,

Tamped-down in an oily sweat.
Closer,
Trixie's face is seen to be puckered
Like the skin of a citrus fruit
And she rises awkwardly to continue the routine.
The trio picks-up where she left-off.

I’ve seen this before— when the drunks

Tumble out of the Marconi Club on Bedford Street
Behind the billboards in the sharp
Spotlight of morning, mumbling for something else.

As the Houselights slap a harsh "Last-Call"
And bewildered more than fulfilled, we pay our tab
In cash, leaving the "everybody's-in" tip on the table.

It's a fast ride west on 6 toward home
And too late at night.
But maybe It'll be okay.
And why not?— I'm old enough now.