Mz. Dog
 
 

I.

Medusa, look at me: I hardly  recognized you now 
that you scrapped  off the tattoos & shaved  your head bald, letting 
 
 

each snake go snicker-snack 

into the tub - how 
the media  sensationalized  the scandal of 
your bath.
  II. My fingers slip - slide all over  your lips: you say you do not want 
them inside so I assume you  mean mouth - the night  you left me, I masturbated to 
the scene where Susie 
 
 

Sexpert hustles out 

dildos 
on the street in virgin machine, falling  asleep with my 
trousers around 
 

my ankles & yes,

in my dream you went 
through with your  operation - in a black  rubber dress 
but something 
 
 

went horribly 

wrong - you came 
back from Switzerland  with a mongrel  bitch grafted onto 
your hindquarters - 
 
 

saying I could 

sink my teeth 
into your veins  above your six  hatchling breasts - feel 
you all big 
 
 

'n pregnant rubbing 

your latex cock, hard 
hardening between  my hands - you'd  think I've never been 
good with my fingers. 
 
 

They lose their 

balance - slip right into 
you - never telling the time  I first french kissed  you in long red hair, electric 
blue go-go boots 
 

& see-through blouse 

while reeking of 
patchouli oil - got junk  sick all over you - in your lap,  your hair, on your bed 
while I kept trying to pull 
 
 

my fingers out but they

kept sliding in, my thumb 
going up side to side to  side knocking my hand back  & forth between your 
fingers & falling in again - I never 
 
 

told you I once found an 

entire box of sweet-n-low & it 
took me an hour to  eat the entire thing ending up  jealous of you because 
you spent my last $25.oo on 
 
 

this "plastic purple penis" 

2 weeks c.o.d. & I was 
hallucinating so much  I thought the latex was really  part of you - no one writes 
dildo poems, Mz.Dog.
 
 

I never told you next to 

my bed there is a picture of 
you & me in Halloween  drag near an old black  sixties Chevy looking for 

someone who could sweat
-fuck like a dog.
 
 

III. Approaching the hotel  she called home 
I thought I could feel the  hot sky hang  between the old gray 
buildings - perhaps 
 
 

I was born behind your 

knees, Mz.Dog? 
- perhaps I was born crawling,  what do you  mean when you speak of the 
passions of a mad dog?
 
 

Once there was an oral 

girl - into barking into 
biting a lot - who grew up  not with two  breasts, but six (this was 
not an inconvenience 
 
 

I might add, for the strange 

can always be
made exotic with enough  body paint + liquid  eyeliner) & great big hands 
she used to push 
 
 

down the sidewalk as she 

loped about - it was 
that great summer moon,  a fearful lemon eye  that kept us all sticky goo 
that night, I must 
 
 

write for you. I must 

entertain.
The night seemed muffled  the copper glare  of street lamps erect overhead 
sway in place 
 
 

a robot's dildo wriggling out 

of the street's 
heinous anus like a jelly  eel. How much of  our energies have been 
taken up in this vanity? 
 
 

- the streets are long - we 

hurry from lit pool to 
lit pool - someone has  scrawled Purgatory in  crayon on the pavement 
at our feet.
 
 

"Purgatory" marks where 

a woman was 
assaulted - beaten to  death, Castro, August  1985 - no detectives in 
sliding door suits 
 
 

woke me up at 3 a.m. telling 

me my sister 
was dead - it must have  been a private wake,  ravaged & wet, stained with 
downtown 
 
 

exhaustion - do not speculate 

on motives, Mz. 
Dog, I am not interested in  what you have to  say - you say the streets bleed 
more than you 
 
 

or I - more than broken 

bottles & worn out 
veins, but after the click/click  of her heels over  drain grates, after the body 
bag & early 
 
 

morning street sweeper washing 

her blood out 
to sea; Damn you ghost of  gala rhythms &  dental damns, I am still waiting 
up for a sister 
 
 

who will never come home 

wearing her dharma 
lizardskin in these electric  light variations - once there was a verbal 
girl who kept 
 
 

her tongue on her sleeve 

who never talked, 
but whirled away waiting  for an emotion  to fall out of the sky like heat 
lightning, 
 
 

Mz. Dog - she was my 

dominatrix, but you 
are my Fury - how many dance  floors have  we been to? A hundred years 
ago our parents would 
 
 

have murdered us - filled our 

spoiled bodies with 
bullets as we stood, backs to  a pock-marked wall,  calling us "el queer
bourgeoisie" - the eaters of 
 
 

the poor - but now she can 

afford to be a bee-bop 
crooner, finding her "lost  wandering Blues" soul  in the tune of 'Ma' Rainey, 
absorbing it all 
 
 

like a chameleon & I 

-I  - I had always wanted to  play richard iii (all  that untapped evilness 
made reading Romeo/
 
 

Juliet as exciting as a cheap 

porno) do you 
understand? - it's so simple  it would be laughable  if it weren't so sinister - there's 
no difference than 
 
 

when I put on all black & steal 

the stage & spot 
light, Oh simple words - for  this generation,  whether we call ourselves Bare 
Back, Roaring 
 
 

Girls, or New & Lost, infected 

with too much 
as if a tongue could be an  antidote, we have  found ourselves beyond the 
glare of glamour, 
 
 

single glory with out 

style - humorless - ghost 
of lips & cocks, do you know  of guitar strings &  blues? - that crooning woman 
who first forced me 
 
 

to sing out on the street with 

a head full of lice - ghost 
I have long played out your  pantomimes in dark rooms,  surrounded by shaded anorexic 
dancers eagerly 
 
 

imitating - you have made 

me a leash from all the 
pubic hair that you ever  plucked out so that when  you snap your fingers what 
else can I do 
 
 

but pucker up & bark like 

a dog? Ghost of 
mademoiselle & shaking  bones, you would  leave a broken bottle on 
the street as if to 
 
 

turn my feet into ragged 

lips - shredded 
kisses - do you remember  that blood oh,  ghost? - that fluid like black 
outs - street 
 
 

corners we would both wait 

for? Damn ghost, 
you have destroyed more  of my friends, unbraided  their hair as they cut a pound 
of flesh from 
 
 

their stomachs their legs, until 

all I have left 
are there beautiful skeletons  dressed  in retro flares of 1970s red/
black.
 
 

Once there was a junkie & 

a whore & a moon 
that would not have us - is  it true no one suffers  like the poor? Not you, Mz.
Dog, not I? - remember 
 
 

our ears like a shattered radio, 

remember the 
alternating jolts of  current? - remember dancing  the vibrato? - the electric blue 
go-go boots? remember 
 
 

the beat? - beware - beware, 

Mz. Dog. She 
will rip your very bones, so  they will say, "she couldn't  play shit, but she made 
it sound so good."

(c) Zachary Chartkoff. All Rights Reserved.

See Zachary's work in our Fiction section.