PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Brenda (Kidd)

You told me about sex.

Remember when we lived

at the swimming pool?

I can’t get no,

boom, boom, boom, booming

in the dank concession area,

echoing in the open-aired basement.

Satisfaction,

bam bam bam

pounding from the jukebox,

the wah wah wah wah, wah wah

sound, rounding off the pillars, and

the puddled concrete, slick.

That was where we’d go to get our

suicide drinks.

Pushing through the tall chairs,

the teenaged faceless person

would laugh when we’d ask for,

A Suicide, please.

Dispensing all the flavors on tap,

they’d hand it to us in tall paper cups,

straw and shaved ice,

our membership bracelet tags

clinking on the bar's counter top.

That day we sat and talked and sipped

at the metal tables heaped with towels

outside the chain linked fence

surrounding the laughing, screaming children,

splashes and whistles

and the smell of chlorine,

the Alabama sun hidden,

our tongues purple.

I never really liked you.

You made me feel small, dumb,

though I was 2 cup sizes

bigger than you

and sat at the front

of the class.

But, I didn’t know about sex.

I was 12, or almost 12,

Or maybe 10, or beyond 10,

but I didn’t know.

So, with two hands in the air

you showed me, being so knowing,

how sex was done.

You made an ok sign,

held it to the sky,

and pierced it with the index finger

from your other hand.

I rode home,

peddling in a blaze, sick

on suicides,

Rolling Stones, blaring

in my head,

with my new found knowledge.

I never really liked you.

You were my best friend.