Recollections Of My Short Career In Pornography

I enjoyed especially the way the actresses smoked
between takes; it was the only honesty

they had left, and thus
precious, after a fashion.

While others might goggle
the snotty-nosed drip of an unwiped

strapon, I'd listen to the flintlock
click of fingers as they summoned lighters,

cigarettes, a sip of Diet Fanta.
It's no use watching lips purse

during fellatio ' that's all their art '
but spying womb-pink flesh pucker

round filter tips, open,
blow, that's the real show,

watching the stem jitter between knuckles
as if today they're female drivers

recounting details after
a very traumatic incident,

and the police officer is nodding
and they are badly shaken.

Sometimes, the girls dressed in cop
uniforms; sometimes, they were nurses;

once, it was naughty lab assistants with conical
flasks (they had discovered a sex formula)

but even then, it wasn't the briny sweat
nor the whale song of orgasms '

it was the massaged temples
during breaks; it was the misjudged flick

of a cardboard match; it was the way they picked
scabs like a striptease.