Disco Inferno

The strippers threw an art show at the community gallery.
Apportioning the boxed wine at the opening, we all wore
protest stickers feminists had plastered on the windows—
“Women Are Not Commodities”—as nipple pasties.
A couple I sort-of knew came through. Generous regulars
over several desperate exhibitions, they had been kind;
managed each time to leave with just the painting I suspected
was my best yet. Deer with magnolia antlers. Sphinx cat
bedazzled with amethyst. Ghost embracing octopus. Strange
parts of myself that strove to be seen, arranged on the walls
of a home I could only imagine awash with natural light.
As my colleagues of the night tuned up the hired portable pole
for the live performance element, what did my patrons purchase?
My oils of lurid fruits—heaving pomelo and cantaloupe—
or muddy watercolor witches taking dressing-room selfies?
They blur together. How good it felt to be collected. Thanks
for supporting the ladies tonight. Later, when the husband
turned up inside the club, I didn’t notice him. He was there
to see another woman. Told the family he was working
night shifts. Which. Sure. Of a kind. He didn’t need to tell me
that when she found out where he’d been, the ex-wife
burned my paintings. Still, he said it. I pictured them together
in a steel drum. Turpentine, linseed, cotton, and pine—kindling
lighting easy. Maybe the flames a little green. Ashes pale
as fresh canvas. I pictured the walls of their house charcoal.
I pictured those walls black as the walls of the strip club
after the earthquake. The dark paint, the crack in the plaster
opening in the ultraviolets like some unearthly gate.