About the Author Slut is from a collection of poems title Voyeur by Rich Murphy on the subject of love in the wasteland, poems exploring love: lust, romance, and compassion. His Poems have appeared in such journals as Rolling Stone, Poetry Magazine, Grand Street, New Letters, Confrontation Magazine, Negative Capability, Vermont Literary Magazine, Slant Journal, Seattle Review, International Poetry Review, Montserrat Review, Connecticut Poetry Review, Icarus, Natural Bridge, Alligator Juniper, New Delta Review, and Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review.

Even though she gives birth
to addiction and pushes dogs
from her breasts, she is brave:
The mirror for women undressed,

a teacher for the unseen, should
there be a student anywhere.
All her pleasure has been given up
for the jackpot of bills and loose coin

bilked from money machines
with removable pants who travel
from bed to bed. She spreads her legs
to yawn and never wants to wake up.

During her first cry she swallowed
her diamond lodging it in her heart,
neither mined by her or anyone else.
Her stand on a corner is myth.

She too plays violin for young men
who lay the streets they piss on
drunk from images that fathers
and mothers poured into their eyes.

But she stretches her own gut.