Melodie Barker, 10/12/2009

Current Occupation: Domestic Engineer
Former Occupation: Accountant
Contact Information: Melodie Barker lives in Flint, Michigan with a clowder of cats and her family. Her poetry has been published in Yellow Medicine Review, Gutter Eloquence, The Shantytown Anomaly, Tales of the Unanticipated, and Sage Woman. She frequents Facebook and lolcats when not working on her M.F.A. from Pacific University.

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Earth Girls Ranch on Mars!!!

When I was little I didn’t tell my mother

that I wanted to be a sex worker on Mars.

It just happened. I don’t mind sucking antennae,

easing the throb of indigo uvulas, massaging

magenta tentacles. The credits are good.

They like to buy me Cokes at the house bar

to watch me swallow acid. And chewing ice

triggers their skin to undulate with iridescence.

But what freaks them out is the zip

of batteries in my Hello Kitty vibrator.

At my mother’s luncheons, when her friends ask

about me and Mars, she tells them I’m fine

and tutoring English. I guess she never discovered

the worlds are better when we all get off.