Let us go then, you and I,
where nipples poke through shirts, and sigh
at breasts arrayed like melons in a market.
Let us go, through gaudy neon-lighted streets,
to gamy, shameless, unsanitized retreats
like nudie bars where topless women fan
the flames of simple-glanded gudgeon: Man.

        In the gloom the women come and go,
yearning for Leonardo diCaprio.

        The suntanned curves they offer lusty minds,
the G-stringed thighs and pink-hued peaks they offer lusty minds,
shimmy flesh into corners of numbed brains,
lie prone upon the stage and wiggle bare behinds.

        In bras or none they quiver and bob
and make those manly organs throb.

        Ah, yes! There will be time
to wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare
to tweak a hooter, run away from there?”

        For I have seen them all already, seen them all:
have seen them pastied, pierced, augmented, all unclad;
have sculpted them with hands as teenaged lad.
I have seen the bosoms drooping with a stretch-marked fall
beneath the music from a Maidenform ad.
        So shall I lift, and separate?

        I should have been a pair of groping paws
copping feelies on the floors of seedy dives.

        They grow cold...they grow cold...
They punctuate the blouse with outlines bold.

        Shall I seek a private room? Do I dare to pay some cash?
Have her dance upon my lap, and risk a rash?
My testosterone is thrumming, substance brash!
        I worry that it will not rise for me.

        We have lingered in the chambers of this joint
with strippers, trollops, babes in postures lewd
till wifely voices bellow--then we’re screwed!

Former Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine and former First Senior Editor of Mysterical-e, Barry Ergang’s poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. A Derringer Award winner from the Short Mystery Fiction Society, some of his work is available at Smashwords and Amazon.