Thai Massage in Thin Pajamas

Khaosan Road, Bangkok

The fluorescent lights. The cotton skirt
sweat-stuck to my thighs. The clammy
air conditioning. The changing room
with wooden lockers. The coarse linen.
The black vinyl mats, the half-naked patrons
sprawled on the floor. The smell
of Tiger Balm. Music from the bar
next door. The couple who wanted
a side-by-side. Pink neon. Calloused hands.
"I've never been massaged by a man," I say.
The invading moose-knuckle. The privileged
groan. His awkward leap across the mat.
"Really? Never a man?" he asks, and heaves
my upper body like a sack of potatoes
or net of fish, swinging once, twice.
And on the third try my vertebrae separate—
creating a momentary space within.
Then another torque of knee cartilage.
Another twist of spine bone.

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Jen Ashburn's first poetry collection, The Light on the Wall, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag. Her work has been published in The MacGuffin, Nerve Cowboy, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, the anthology Words Without Walls, and other journals. She completed her MFA at Chatham University in poetry and creative nonfiction.