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Visit my FTP site:  ftp://ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/Roller/  <--click
Click, or put the address into your browser.  More poems are there.
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                                                 Jazzmine
                                           by Carrie Wright


A dancer at the "Gentlemen's club" Where I danced, too, crashed into the          
//dressing room
one night.  Jazz got mad better than anybody.

It was Derby night.
A six hundred dollar night.
She wasn't making money
Even though guys were lined up
outside in heavy rain,
slowly drying off and paying six dollars to sit down,
order six dollar cokes and watch us undress.

I asked Jazzmine, "What's up?  You okay?"
I know she's not, but want the story.
"Yeah, I'm pissed.  Same fucker as always!"
She pointed through the dressing room wall to where
the DJ booth is opposite us.
she pointed more specifically
Through the wall, at the DJ.

"Sean, the D.J.?" I asked.
Loud metal locker slammed as she says,
"He threw a Frisbee at me."
Leather five inch studded heels         fly.
One, into the mirror.  The other
down the gray counter through curling irons
make-up bags.  Stops
in a puddle of spilled cranberry juice.

She kept telling,
"...fucker.  He threw the Frisbee and it spilled Julia's coffee all over me          
//and you know I
haven't had a good night.  So I ask who did it and he says 'not me' and          
//Beaver says
'I dunno'.  Idiots.  Why do they fuck with me?"

I'm thinking,
if she could have seen herself,
she'd have known.

Tangled, long, dark hair whipping
sharply like a torn accordion fan
beating out still air.
Small, wild body shooting 
through the club like a quarter thrown
into wishing water.
Her brown eyed face juxtaposed.
Woman and teacher's pet.

She stomped in,
then out of the dressing room
three times in five minutes.  Quitting.  Cussing.
Changing costumes.

Two minutes later asphalt steamed the faces of waiting
"gentlemen" Jazzmine was already dancing nude for,
rain and hail south of us.


- Carrie Wright
 

[Indented lines with double slashes // appearing in the text indicate that 
the line above runs farther to the right than my word processor allows.  
The line should be considered a continuation of the previous line.  - Ed.]


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For more poetry visit:
ftp://ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/Roller/  <--click
http://www.angelfire.com/al2/willdockerypoems/index.html
/~Roller/index.html
     (It is case sensitive, i.e. type Roller, not roller)


Jazzmine is copyright 2001 by Carrie Wright


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