Here is a poem I wrote called "Tenderloin."
I was writing specifically about an area in San Francisco.
And when I'd written the poem, I wondered
what people would make of it outside of San
Francisco, like if they were reading it in England,
for example.
So I wondered if the word was in the dictionary, as
opposed to meaning tenderloin from steak,
of course, a tenderloin steak.
And I found some very interesting definitions.
Two definitions.
One, a former district of New York City
from 23rd to 42nd Streets west of Broadway
where vice flourished and police corruption was common.
Sounds very like it is today, isn't it,
in New York City in that particular area?
Two, any urban district noted for its nightlife, incidence
of crime, and police leniency.
Notice how where vice flourished has become nightlife.
And police corruption has become police leniency.
So I guess you've got a tenderloin in Tucson.
I don't know.
Do you?
Is there an area called that?
No.
No, not yet.
Give us time.
And I'm making play also with the phrase--
I'm making a pun on tender loin--
tenderloins.
The reason that these districts were called that, I have since
learned, was that the corrupt police,
instead of eating hamburgers, were
able to eat free meals of tenderloin steak
in the tenderloin.
That's what I've been told anyway.
"Tenderloin."
This poverty recognizes a street only as link between corners,
greasy with expedient.
Corners turned or waited on, slippery as they may be,
for transactions or news of them.
Not poverty beaten down, poverty, rather,
on the make without being clever enough to make it.
Smallish sums pass hands.
This poverty seeks out stereotype--
gentle black whore, foul-mouthed old cripple, snarling skinhead,
tottering transvestite, et cetera.
City romantics.
Come on, you, obey your impulse.
Costs only a little more than in the country.
It's also slippery.
But you might say one lubricant is as good as another.
And there's no such thing as an insincere erection, is there?
Think of the Spanish fly.
It irritates the urethra, which has been capable, however,
of responding to more delicate stimuli.
And of the loins too, firm, open slopes
that lead to the padded valley, tender loin.
Protecting the serviceable channel and glands,
delicate almost as eyeballs, tenderness
anesthetized and irritated.
Strip it bare.
Grease it well with its own foul lubricant against the grit
of its own sharp corners.
Scrape it to orgasm.
Nasty poem.