overview published poems unpublished poems

Girlfriends


This is in celebration of
the plum
we strip with lazy sunbright teeth
to scintillating pink flesh
before the sweet devouring.
We stretch
bare midriffs against
the toasted metal of my parents' Ford
as shards of sunlight glance off
our squinting eyes.
We are so young
and oh
so
bored.
This is in celebration of
those magazines
whose promiseland pages we inhale
and wonder if we'll ever look
like her or her
or her
while perched on cool tiled countertops
behind closed bathroom doors
we wave magic sticks of
cream or shadow
and pray for alchemy
but settle for less.
I celebrate
the pinstriped
souped-up
V.W. bug that carries us
along with Real Don Steele
blasting top ten
sing-along shoop-de-shoops
West
on Freeway 55
to that luminous teenage Mecca
also known as
Newport Beach.
I celebrate, yes, it's true
going nowhere fast
doing nothing
with passion
I celebrate the languor
of minutes
without price tags.

[Published in rivertalk, Volume IX, 1997]