Tea House

the freakiest café

you would, freak

but it’s mild

like a dream,

townies, loose

leaf tea called

day dream and
diarrhea

simple foods

West 

as a spy collecting

kisses for my belt

notes on bodies, notes

on my future as a teen

boobs, obviously, a car

an attitude

a tan

not two weeks but eight

DTS*, mad friends

desperate to be Harriet (the spy)

charming in baggy clothes,

nonchalant,

keen on simple foods and cats,

vulnerable wrists in a wheel pose on the bed

and the way the pencil lead

made my mouth water

and so the lackluster versions

of south Jersey, of my

family

            oh,

            kiss! kiss!

            we’d beg our parents

just a little spark?

feeling hopelessly young

in my belt at the picnic table

at dawn, wait for my mom

for her bike along the rocks

until 7 am,

as if suicide might just happen to me

*Down the Shore