by Stephanie Kaylor
it’s the first summer in nearly ten years
I do not have to spend nearly every night
alone
alone, as in,
with the fathers, with the doctors,
with the husbands
who do not know
my name, alone, as in
Stephanie
does not exist
except checking out checking in
alone, as in,
even the hotel maids have left
to their second jobs
or their jobs of home
I do not know
do not ask
only wink right back
when I take another stack of towels from their carts
I leave a tip
before I try to leave it all behind
as much as I ever could
& I’m in love
I fell in love
as much as I ever could
with a poet
because I knew I could never be one
though here I am,
capable of filling a single statement
with two lies
as if to render some negation
lie atop well-oiled lie
smashing into some slippery gesture
that could one day labor into birthing
some truth
it’s true
He was a poet
it’s true
I did not feel
alone
did not feel alone
when there were only two nights
he introduced me
to acquaintances, other poets
in passing
did not complain
did not hesitate
those two nights
when they asked if I am a poet
and I said no
not because I have never felt
startled by the small bird
rustling through dead leaves
startled
by how death is always amplified
by the living
by those who bear witness
by what we can or cannot do
I too have written my wonder
into fragments
I too have kept my griefs
in order, the traumas in tercets, the loves
in couplets
or I have tried to
have shared them with the world
overshared
have read of wonders
I will never know and I know
I know too little
of the lineages
of their meters
know too little
of their prized lilies
or their bread loaves
these things that sustain them
or, the things they labor to make
I know that I have not worked
toward it
even when I have worked toward the poem of it
do not want to claim what isn’t mine
because I know what it means
to see your work devalued
like the novelist who is always told
you know, I’m working on a novel myself
or the poet who years before had told me
that being a poet is about more
than just sex
I walked out his door
walked off the campus
didn’t go back
didn’t take another class
you have to work for it
and I walked away
I accept this
do not look behind me
always look behind me
always contradict myself
unsure of where to end the poem
as in: I do not write a poem
only fragments
never tailored, never polished
the work of it
the work where I’ve not once clocked in
but I read & I read the poems by those who did
the powerful,
the necessary, the oh,
this poem, the oh
how I weep
I read the poem in which a woman is called
a whore, whore as metaphor, whore as vehicle
driving her away from the rotting roadside flesh
of having lived as it
it as us, us as it
I read an Ivy League write-up of the frozen bird
of its distance
ceding narrative to metaphor
the praise that lies coldly
and sterilely therein
I read the poet who wrote of the trauma:
and that is when/ I almost/ became//
a prostitute
or maybe I recall it incorrectly
maybe she wrote it out correctly
wrote sex worker
wrote it even if it sacrificed the harmony of her syntax
these sacrifices that she makes
maybe she knows the lingo
knows it all
because for a moment she felt the proximity
and she wants you to pity her
and she knows how hard it is
like the poet who wrote
don’t you think I understand
what struggle is/ you don’t
understand// what struggle is
after the night
the night a singularity like the moon
cliched like the moon
she writes, after the night/ she had to whore herself/
while on holiday// in Europe
and I would write that I read these poems
on my phone while in the Sunset Inn
Parkside Motel in between
shifts in between
—I still don’t know
if I’m supposed to say it’s been a busy day
how it would disgust them
make more pungent the need for housekeeping
to bleach the pages of the bed
I still don’t know if I’m supposed to say
it’s been a slow day
how it would disgust them
how they’d see me as unwanted,
desperate, even when I am
like Blanche DuBois
turning down the light in the Flamingo Inn
and I still don’t know
how I remember my names at check in
remember my others
when I answer the door
when I’m in the room with a view
of a parking lot, when I do not bother
looking for the moon
know everything it would tell me
don’t want to know the things it would not
when I would read these poems
by these writers
by these would-have-beens
by these once-weres
by those whose covers are adorned with medallions
not this trial size Lysol
the streaks I seat myself upon
so the men can pretend
or I can pretend
they do not see what others have left behind
where I would read these poems
but the truth is I don’t read a word in these places
I do not read a word
I keep that self
in a lockbox
like the envelopes
of men’s smugly dead faces
the envelopes
you’re supposed to count before the session
but I never do
do not want to see
when a man tries to short me by ten dollars
tell myself if it comes up short
it’s a clerical error on my part
a part of me I leave behind
one part or another I alone can blame
beat them in their vapid game
and even when it happens
I can afford more now
can afford the four star hotel
can afford a few new books
—this is privilege
to afford to read the tragedy
of a woman who once felt akin to me
was almost seen as me
spent a few nights as me
nights of oysters
nights the bank accounts were not shut down
the police did not harass
nights the sting wasn’t in the news
the only sting
was that of the volta they made themselves
while the staff made their coffee at Yaddo
poured their wine on their tour
and maybe you thought
that this would be a love poem
and maybe I thought it would be too
I thought I could leave work behind
in my poems, in my life
I thought love
would knock me out
and for a moment it did
I saw myself as an old woman growing kale
growing away
from the work of sex the sex
of work
as if that’s how it ever works out
as if you can leave when you want to leave
the way he left, the way he told me
that I have never wanted to face the consequences
of being a whore
as if I don’t face the consequences even in my poems
can’t get out
though maybe every poem
is nonetheless a love poem
but every poem is a work poem too
even when we do not know whose hands
built the window
who tends to the garden
who is whoring in the motel
that you could have gone to
but did not
who is bleaching its sheets
of your absence
waiting for everyone else to leave, to clock out
waiting to live the love poem
that’s not a work poem
a poem I still believe
is only fantasy, but of fantasies
I have read worse, fantasies
in which I too clock out
am clocking out
Stephanie Kaylor is the author of ASK A SEX WORKER! (CLASH Books, 2024.) They are a recipient of fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and UC Santa Barbara, where they are currently completing their PhD in Feminist Studies with a focus on US sex workers’ histories and self-narratives. Stephanie’s writing can be found or is forthcoming in journals including Salamander and Split Lip Magazine. They live in Brooklyn.