Wednesday, January 11, 2017

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