OFTEN IN DREAMS SHE WAS MY GIRLFRIEND UNTIL I REMEMBERED, STILL ASLEEP, THAT IT WASN'T OKAY
Her hair was a miracle of brown-black curls,
spring coiled and shiny, and she sprayed it
with TRESemmé and hung it over the edge
of the bed while she slept on slumber-party
Saturday nights so she wouldn’t have to
wash it before church, and six birthmarks
half a shade darker than the rest of her creamy
olive skin traced her cheek from one earlobe
to the corner of her mouth. At video dances,
held tight to the stiffening groin of my own
partner, I watched her unfocused eyes
and bored frown while a punk kid, thick chain
padlocked around his neck, nuzzled hers.
Did she like it? I couldn’t tell, but when they
broke up, he carved her name into his chest
with the point of his knife. I still think of how
those letters, crooked and keloid, must mark him
after all these years. She introduced me,
kid from a canned-fruit-cocktail family,
to the pomegranate, its pressed paper rind,
those nestled ruby cells, each with a seed
that nearly filled it. So many tiny morsels
and so much work to get their meager juice.
But sweet enough to make it worth it. To stain
my hands, my face, my precious white cotton
leggings with the delicate cuff of lace at each ankle.
On a night when we’d driven three hours south
to walk the strange, thrilling circuit of the nearest
shopping mall (Orange Julius! The Gap!), we lay
on our stiff-sheeted hotel bed in our tank tops
and underwear, facing each other in the dark,
and she asked me if I’d ever thought about
kissing a girl. I said yes. Then we stayed silent
and still until morning, neither of us rolling over
to get comfortable or adjusting our hard pillows
or hanging our hair over the bed’s edge
to keep it neat. I could hardly hear her breathe.
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