THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MASSAGE PARLOR OPEN AT 2AM AND AN ACUPUNCTURE PLACE OPEN AT 2AM IN LAWRENCEVILLE
Thank god the massage parlor
doesn’t put needles in your dick
but, then again, the acupuncture place
doesn’t give handjobs.
Dave Newman, a recent Pushcart winner for fiction, is the author of ten books, including Better Than the Best American Poetry (Roadside Press, 2025) and the story collection She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall (Roadside Press, 2024). His collection The Slaughterhouse Poems (White Gorilla Press, 2013) was named one of the best books of the year by L Magazine. He was a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize and won their Readers’ Choice Award in 2024. His poems, essays, and stories have appeared in magazines and journals around the world, including Ambit (U.K.), Tears In The Fence (U.K.), Gulf Stream, Belt, and the legendary Nerve Cowboy. He appeared in the PBS documentary narrated by Rick Sebak about Pittsburgh writers. Newman lives in Trafford, PA, the last town in the Electric Valley, with his wife, the writer Lori Jakiela. After a decade of working in medical research, he currently teaches in the Creative and Professional Writing Program at The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, his alma mater.
