Song of the Oyster Girl, Naked in The New World

When I change the thickness of my eyeliner
or tug on my top to lengthen my cleavage
I remember Kitty West who, in 1945, came barrelhousing
out of two shells to delight everyone in the French Quarter.

She’d lie in wait with her arms around a gigantic pearl
and then emerge in a veil making the birth
of Venus look like a schoolgirl waiting for the bus.
She’d cradle her pearl against her cheek

like it was the most precious thing in the world and slide into a split.
With a gilded foot, she’d draw a figure 8 which is the sexiest number
as long as you have a dirty mind and you had to be dirty,
I mean really dirty, to take your striptease out of the clubs

and onto Bourbon Street because anyone can strip well in the dark
there’s no challenge in that. A true seductress is a topless daywalker
and you couldn’t miss Kitty, though there were a lot of girls

giving the people what they needed in long gloves and sequined pasties
but Kitty took her sexy and mixed it with freaky and came up
with waves of green hair to let the people know that
she was a wayward sea goddess whose top fell off on her way

out of the Atlantic, a savage mermaid
outside of the Absinthe House where patrons sipped
juleps for $1.25 a head. Now I live the legacy of the oyster girl
because these streets are teeming with sex, tits and teeth are not

enough to get what I want; I stay kinky and crazy and bold
and one day my hands will also fill with pearls,
so keep your eyes on your wallet
I’m here to take your money and your man.

Rita Mookerjee is a PhD candidate at Florida State University studying Literature. Her chapbook Becoming the Bronze Idol is forthcoming from Bone & Ink Press.

Gem Blackthorn is QMT's Sex Columnist, and the author/curator of Lust Thrust Thursdays. Send her your submissions and questions at sexsexsex [at] queenmobs.com