BEING ROOMMATES WITH A STRIPPER

by Jennifer Elise Wang

The picket line on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood has been loud, energetic, flamboyant, and... costumed. The strippers from Star Gardens have organized for their protection and become a cause célèbre for other organizers and unions across the country. —People’s World, June 6, 2022

When your roommate is a stripper,

You discover who makes

The teeniest thong

You can legally get away with

And that 7-inch Pleasers

Are not too bad to walk in.

When your roommate is a stripper,

You start going to the gym more,

Not to have her body exactly

But to have the same gluteal control

In order to twerk along with her

In your at-home dance parties.

When your roommate is a stripper,

You see the stacks of 1s,

But not the 5s, 10s, or 20s

She has given to the house and staff.

When your roommate is a stripper,

You stop laughing at jokes about her job

Because her colleague was stalked

And another was threatened

While the bartender laughed

At the image of her possible demise.

Every night, it’s a flip of the coin

As to whether she’ll be assaulted.

When your roommate is a stripper,

You learn about misogynoir,

TERFs and SWERFs,

Labor rights and union-busting tactics,

And that it’s always “sex worker”

And never “prostitute” or the other word

That sounds more apropos for fishing.

When your roommate is a stripper,

You get advice on how to set boundaries

While still smiling at the customer.

When your roommate is a stripper

And getting ready for a night of picketing

While you’ve come home after overtime

And drink a beer with some Tylenol

For your Carpal tunnel and plantar fasciitis

And blink away your dry eyes,

You realize you are selling your body too. 

Jennifer Elise Wang (she/they) is a lab tech, burlesque dancer, drag king, and poet. She won First Prize for Open Poetry in the 2018 On My Own Time Art and Literary competition and has been published in The Gunpowder Review, Jerseyworks, and R2 Rice Review. In her free time, she likes to skateboard and volunteer at the animal shelter.

TWERKING ON THE SUBWAY

by Will Stockton

On the D train north
D – isn’t that just too cute? –
twerks my husband.
Without cable we live
in 2009. I saw the performance
on YouTube the morning after.
Without cable Miley Cyrus
is still Hannah Montana
and Robin Thicke is no one
we know. Cyrus says – You're
wanting to make history, y'all –
so pulls old strings of slut shaming,
of swift love and theft.
I thread the move into a lyric
I sang on the El south from Fullerton –
Is it worth it? Let me twerk it –
as D, white hipster, high school
musical dancer, bends over to touch
his toes, to keep his balance
as the train swerves left.


Will Stockton is associate professor of English at Clemson, South Carolina, where he teaches Renaissance literature and queer studies. His most recent book, Crush, forthcoming from Punctum Books, is a collection of poems and lyric essays co-written with D. Gilson.

JENNY TWERKED ME

by Barb Crane

    with apologies to James Henry Leigh Hunt

Jenny twerked me when we met,
jumping from the chair she perched in.
Jenny moved in etiquette
that took my breath away. She lurched in
time to music, thrusting hips.
I’m old and weary but she perked me
up, and my lapsed member-ship.
I’m renewed. Jenny twerked me.


Barb Crane has published two chapbooks, Zero Gravitas (White Violet Press, 2012) and Alphabetricks (for children, Daffydowndilly Press, 2013).  In 2011 she won the Helen Schaible International Sonnet Award. Her poems currently appear in The Rotary Dial and Atlanta Review, and are forthcoming in Mezzo Cammin and First Things.