Alicia
A charmed life, solid-like:
Apple, piano, white teeth, French braid
Turning backbends in the backyard.
Spotting mine, smirking.
White on a wall is not white but
Bone and Ivory.
Eyelet, not lace
No crinoline or miniatures.
“Who wants to fuck Chrissy and Alicia?” Fifth grade and all the sixth-grade boys
raised their hands.
I didn’t know what that meant but I knew it was something good. I wanted to
shriek or link arms, but we weren’t that kind of friends. She swallowed her smile,
and we walked fast past the boys, Alicia with her cool gray stare
Not gray. Stone or Smoke. Graphite? Ash.
But later, sixteen, I heard things:
“She was on top then I guess she, like, leaned back. How slutty is that?”
Backbends.
I could picture it, showing off like doing penny drops,
Knees hooked around the metal rungs,
rocking until she rocketed up and over,
Perfect landings always.
This new savage thing- this I wanted to see
A hitch in the hips, a slip
The sloppiness of wanting.