I met a stripper on my first visit to the big West,sitting on a hill in Marin—I was wearing a black red yellow plaid shirt,she wore something more open, loose,sleeveless.                        Her knees to her chest,she was pulling at the brown Californiagrass, throwing it back down.I loved looking at her plain brown hair falling over the side of her face.I was still wearing women’s clothes and shoes,but I made myself a believer that day.Her thick belt, heavy boots—brown eyes.The way she looked at me until I had to look away.She was a boy and I hadn’t met anyone like her yet,look at her blue shirt, she opened me, the wayshe tore at the grass: hard then threw it.We walked the hills in Marin, I wantedto be like her, I wanted to be her.I couldn’t even say what she had,but I wanted it.Our time lasted only weeks, but her facestill comes to me.I made myself a queen those days,inside I felt the turning diamondsof a life not lived/someone’s else’s life,now mine: holding the vision, heavy as mud,I thought: Just a push?Into my own bleeding heart—I could feel the brass screws of the rail’s underside/a train running without me/I could feel the spikes and the crosscutsand I came alive in the fading light and the skyful of birds.And I did, I did—and it wasfierce and wild, and back-to-the-wall scary,it was off/on, whenever she was there, I was a blank slatewith a hard body, it was everything I wanted,someone to kiss me nice and slow,then slam me onto the ground’s body.It would be years until I knew her, knew that part of meas I searched second-hand stores for men’s clothing/men’s size 7 shoes, looking for the boy/man in me.I don’t believe in salvation, butlook at her body stripping:jerking to one side, head bent,hair covers her face, breasts large and moving,her thickness:Wet with boysweat between her legs,a stripshot across a pitchblack stage,flash of a woman running her show.However she wants you/she can have you/half of a wholebody/stripping for you,the body divided/                                against itselfin beauty:I made myself a man watching her:the stripshot breaks apartinto millions of shotback starscutting the night apartin her crosscut body,hard and lovely.Some people say half isn’t anything/but it will drive an ocean backto the center.She’ll take your money and you’ll thank herin the cage of your body,drowning in the stripping/loving the shotback body.                Dear ghost of everything you wanted:                Jerking you into pleasure, jerking you                into your own story with a stripshot                of ammo to the vulva, triangle of light,                triangle of her: the wrapper, 3 sides of lust,                the fuckfield, the 4th eye.I saw the future in her body but I didn’t know my questions:all that came out of my mouthwere birds.