Alicia

Christine Alexander

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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