by Kristin Garth

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

It’s not just him that’s on the phone. He’s deaf,
this customer. You should have known. He types
to you, TTY, translated request
by some young jocular guy. Sounds like snipes
what he relays—the pay, full nude, where you
will meet the boat Sunday. A birthday gift
you said you’d never be—and naked, too;
ignoring boundaries. Just topless shifts
inside the bar. No outside dances, nude,
with caviar. Your boss insisted for
her friend, executive, distinguished, lewd
“a gentleman—just one hour, nothing more.”
But this witness, because it’s TTY,
knows how expensive you are to buy.

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Kristin Garth is a Pushcart- and Rhysling-nominated sonneteer and a Best of the Net 2020 finalist. She is the author of a short story collection You Don’t Want This (Pink Plastic Press) as well as The Staked (Really Serious Literature) and many more books.

by Kristin Garth

near guillotines, acclaimed headsmen of means.

Duplicitous gleams eyeing you, their thighs

secretly tattooed, surnames, killers, kings,

state-sanctioned blowjobs, beheadings so why

not princess—even you? One bed, one head,

misstep, or two, detected, collected, stored

fine wine uncorked, with lords, midnight, rust, red

aroma, royal deficiencies poured

some stone-floored cellar, behind arched oak doors.

A happy ending may require cunning,

a crown to topple, rolling heads on floors

ideally yours. Best sacrifice is queen.

Appeasement is the strategy you take.

They’re carnivores, and you serve them cake.

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Kristin Garth is a Pushcart Prize- and Best of the Net-nominated poet from Pensacola and a sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked magazines like Five: 2: One, Yes, Glass, Anti-Heroin Chic, Occulum, Drunk Monkeys, Luna Luna, TERSE. Journal, and many more. She is the author of the chapbooks Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Pensacola Girls (Bone & Ink Press), Shakespeare for Sociopaths (The Hedgehog Poetry Press, January 2019), and Puritan U (Rhythm & Bones Press, March 2019), as well as a full-length collection Candy Cigarette (The Hedgehog Poetry Press, April 2019). A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony will also be published by Rhythm & Bones Press in June 2019. Follow her on Twitter @lolaandjolie or visit her at kristingarth.com.