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