The Name

Before you ask, "girlspit" does not indicate some XXX, sexbot persona I created so that I could indulge in various forms of cyber-debauchery. Besides the fact that I think it just sounds neat, I ripped it from the title of a poem by Lisa Coffman (just to give credit where credit is due). The name and the poem's main idea incorporate a sense of matter-of-fact femininity. By this, I mean that the person Coffman describes exudes the confidence of one who is absolutely comfortable in her own skin. Don't misunderstand me. I am not always comfortable with myself every second of every day, but I have come to both know and accept myself as a matter of course. I am what I am, in the immortal words of Popeye the Sailor-Man.

With that taken care of, what, you may ask, is a cuspidor? Well, it's a fancy-shmancy, old-timey name for a spittoon. I chose this because the name of my web-site is "The Spittoon," and I'd like to differentiate between the two. Oh, and "The Spittoon" was apparently taken. As was the very simple "Cuspidor, " but those people haven't posted in years. So, I can lull myself into a deluded sense of originality. Beyond that, a cuspidor is, simply put, a spit receptacle. Here, I intend to use it as a place to unload my blather. What better name, I ask you?

With no further ado, Coffman's poem in all its simple beauty.


GIRL/SPIT

She presses her dark lips
in a pleased way, as if she has said
the word whiskey again, or tucked
into a corner of her mouth a grass blade
which she briefly squatted and chose
before standing, and with a slap
to her back pockets, slouched
into the length of herself.

It's the hook-thinness of her smile
that draws something like the beaded
metallic chain of a lamp
down my spine and stomach, toward the pucker
her smile has pushed to its corner--
the flutter of that cheek
working down on itself, working spit
and finding its own taste sweet.
The flower floats all night in a glass,
the kitchen lit in other places by the moon.

Lisa Coffman