We sat in a semicircle
at the strip club, me between
my six male friends, all of us
damp from rain and bathed
in blue light. As dancers dipped
into the laps of my companions,
I rearranged my face, took sips
of whiskey, thought, I’m Tony Soprano.
I felt far from everyone,
not man enough to drool, not naked
enough to dance. Having assumed
myself a coolly unbothered woman,
I was surprised my friends wouldn’t
look me in the eye. I’m Tony Soprano,
I kept mouthing to them encouragingly
from the other end of a G-string
but they didn’t understand me, nobody
will ever understand me, I thought,
I’m the loneliest poet in the strip club.
Beauty, lust, dirt, and money soaked
in cobalt around me. In my fantasy
I’m ubiquitous, impossible
not to know. Soft and vulgar
as blue light spilling from a strobe.
theatlantic.com