The Trick Book

“D’you know the difference between a big cat and a little one?”

A big cat’ll claw your eyes out

But a little pussy never hurt no one.”

We  hold these truths against our sometimes doubt

And write them in our trick book as lore:

L'effronterie, la complaisance et la metamorphose,

Said poor Anne-Joseph Théroigne de Méricourt,

Describing both whore’s art and what we expose

In making poems as the big cats do.

Aren’t we prophetic strumpets every one.

Rowdy girls who will cut you  

And little pussies having little pussy fun

writing our trick book in the margins of the Norton Anthology:

sisters, let’s take back our gynecology.

Karen Chamisso