Ruth Dorothy Grotenrath, untitled (1968)

September Seventeenth

My body is a switch for you

And I’m always right here

Carrying myself around

With these legs I’ll have forever

After talking for what felt like

Forever with you on the broken bed

You rub up against me

Just for the shine & my body

My body is a switch for you

That doesn’t turn anything on


contouring 101

beautiful women don’t

it means you have ugly things like thoughts of 

who needs air when I have another man’s money?

perhaps in a better world so long as you look like

doesn’t matter

what can I say?

I’m a fountain I leech I regret buying both

I must warn you [:] if the men find out 

we can shapeshift they are going 

to tell the church

eliminate the nostrils

rich people don’t need to breathe

look at me 

I’m a completely 

different person

who wants to give me their money? 

This poem is an erasure of a transcription of a YouTube makeup tutorial called “contouring 101” by Sailor J.

Rebeca Felix is a poet and educator based in Milwaukee. Her first book, Strip Poker, was released in a limited hand-sewn edition in 2023. She holds an MFA from Columbia University. Her work can be found in American Chordata, Pom Pom Press, Tuff Poems and Pitymilk Press.