From Nerve Cowboy #3 Spring 1997

 

TOPLESS DANCE CONTEST

 

Joan Jobe Smith

 

 

My hands are shaking and my knees are

weak, I'm itching like a woman in a

fuzzy tree, I'm all shook up, naked

from the waist up wearing a hospital

gown, waiting with ten other topless

ladies for a mammogram, nervous and

alert as if we are waiting to go on

stage for a topless dance contest, one

woman out of ten, we all know, will get

breast cancer, and surely we all

wonder which of us will win today

the prize: a few more years of life

with clear, fine breasts.

 

A long time ago when I once danced

in a go-go contest, a Tina Turner

look-alike with jackhammer legs was

the $100 winner, a Marianne Faithfull

look-alike who wrote poetry with her

toes came in second, and I placed last,

winning the consolation prize of a

pitcher of beer and a bag of corn chips

I gave to my hippie boyfriend I later,

erroneously, married, and now the

competition's older, these topless

ladies' and my bikini thoughts as

faded as yesterday's tie-dyes, many

of us gray-haired grandmothers as we

clutch our hospital gowns so's not to

reveal any cleavage before our turn on

stage, each of us hoping this mammogram

simple routine, just another bugaloo,

but I wanna get down, pray to God, man,

spare these tits, this sweet, innocent

meat of mine, I'll shake my tail feathers,

God, honest, man, just see how my hands

are shaking and my knees so weak,

I believe, God, I believe, and God,

I'm so goddamned sick and tired

of dancing.

 

 

 

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