Finally
At that point
everything
we’d learned,
anything
we held as
precious or
dear, like
Sunday morn-
ing service or
the champions
of the drawn out
spelling bee,
or words, as
we’d sing at
the bees or in
to our church
bonnets, which
we’d sing or
spell, in
congregational
harmony—
to live by—
essentially
what we’d
finally begun
to think of us
as including,
like old magick,
an assortment of
Refinance &
Relevance (
each with a
misshaped
capital R at its
rump; each R
became struck
with short-
lived but
lethal pain).
And that’s
just about
when she
showed me
her boobs.
