Sex Shop Whips
You should have seen the size of those suckers,
they must have got a lot of lion tamers coming in.
Deep down into the edible panty bowels
of that basement sex shop.
Run by large angry African transplants
that cussed out the patrons
for taking pictures.
Pointing up to a sign over the cash
of a camera with a red line through it.
2 for 1 flavoured spermicide displays
and a full-sized cage on the floor
without comment.
Those leather shorts with zippers in both
the front and back.
A stunning array of mystery jellies in squeeze tubes
with names like: Pickle Pleaser or Smooth Ride.
But that wall of whips was the showstopper.
Like a cache of medieval torture implements.
It really made you wonder about all the people
you passed in the street.
Which ones slept in a cage instead of a bed,
and why more of them were not walking
so gingerly to catch the light.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author who lives in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work has been published both in print and online in such places as: The New York Quarterly, Red Fez, Evergreen Review, The Literary Underground, Horror Sleaze Trash, Rusty Truck, Zygote in my Coffee and The Oklahoma Review. He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.
