brief index of whores in the Oxford English Dictionary
Maddy Robinson
io ; n . [ Help me ]: my name is Io – pronounced I O U – emphasis on the diphthong . I ’ m Leda Medusa Lito Salome and Danae . I ’ m Duessa in the blue dress in the white house my black heels punctuate your page with the bloody underside . Zeus watched me bathe and turned me cow-eyed , Hera sent me away across the Bosporus , the Ox-Ford Strait to be split and defined and if you look up whore in the OED you ’ ll find me .
But only half of me , cut beneath the flesh of page .
bathsheba ; v . Did you hear ? King David loved a minor chord and when I kissed him I caught mono theism and everyone called me a whore .
And whore is so close to whole . And whole so close to holy , but not quite .
I ’ m no longer a woman but a verb , where bath and bathing meet . Bathsheba bathes . Bath ; she bathes ; bath ; she bathes ; bath ; she bathes ; bath ; she bathes ; bath ; she is no longer a she , not quite . Let ’ s be honest : Bathsheba was raped .
bathsheba ; pron . [ If you see King David tell him Hi for me , tell him maybe I can ’ t memorize a psalm but