the paperbacks were exactly the same size

one was published by Warner Books a Time-Warner Company The Mysterious Press James Ellroys The Black Dahlia 325 pages

the other A Plume Book published by the Penguin Group Toni Morrisons Paradise 318 pages

seems they were printed to a standard applied to the paperback industry

their content was similar

while one was common

                          the other poetic elegant  elegiac

they were equally brutal

they reminded him that no matter how you dressed a whore she was still a whore

if there was the hole in his logic it was simple

hed never meet a whore

not a street corner hooker 

not in an alleyway or in a backseat

                                     Suck your cock for five dollars, mister.

cocksucking was foreplay 

                            it wasnt the game

would he have to pay more to have her put her finger up his ass while she sucked his cock

did ya tip

he hadnt ever paid for sex

he could masturbate

queer that the paperbacks were the same at first blush

but spreading their pages

                            like whoreshe assumed

                                                      they were different

2131,  Twosday,  3  3. 20

1508,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  2  9. 20