Acrimony & Cheese

Bob Saget is a liar and a pervert!
His voice comes to her
from the McDonald's drive-thru speaker;
he tells her things -
not Columbine things, no.
Information. He tells
her things.

She smiles, and there is silence.
She says at least she's not a danger
to herself or others;
at least not now,
not this week.
She smiles: silence.

Besides, she adds,
it is October:
the ground is getting too cold.

I love her with the ferocity
of a young boy
who has never heard
the creak crunch of someone
tearing herself from existence.

She says she feels more comfortable with guys.
The girls hate her. They call her crazy:
a slut with the boys at her public school,
say she likes the blacks and the Mexicans.
We do not know one way or another.
We are Catholic school boys.
She says we are her protectors;
she would marry each and every one of us,
if she were marriage material,
which she is not, and, look!
Full House is on the television!
turnitoffturnitoffturnitoff!

We love her with the ferocity
of young boys
who have never
truly possessed anything.

After an awkward dating situation
with one of us, (Really, it could have been
any of us), she disappears mid-summer.
We say we are happy for the break.

There is a party in autumn;
someone's parents are gone.
The guys get together for a card game.
Someone comments on when was the last time
we were all together without beer,
what are we, old ladies?
We smile; silence.

Suddenly, she is there,
splay-legged akimbo,
goofy-gorgeous.
I realize that I have
missed her with the ferocity
of a boy becoming a man.

She is there, breathing,
living in this room,
becoming this room.
She wants everything
in the room, but does
not know where to put it.

She tells us that,
as a young girl,
she was made to remove
all the snow from
a Colorado driveway
with a teaspoon
by one of her stepfathers.

She tells us that
exactly one week ago
this night, she was raped
by three college boys
in a rusty Oldsmobile,
that the upholstery smelled
like the McDonald's
drive-thru speaker,
that she will avoid
turning right at all costs.

We boys fashion peacock tails
out of playing cards,
we talk ass-kickings and
Louisville Slugger Sodomy,
we shout questions, puff
our chests, fondle our junk.

She whispers,You sissy Catholic-school pussies.
You won't do anything.
She takes off her jacket and sits on the floor.
We sulk and scowl because she is right.
You couldn't handle them. You probably
can't even handle me!
She begins to crawl on the shag carpet,
her brown hair hiding her face.
She crawls to each one of us,
looks up with the eyes of someone else,
and calls us out; calls us by name.

Do you think you can handle me? Huh?

When she comes to me, her strange
dark eyes challenge me; her mouth
curls into a wolf's grin.
I hear what can only be described by hindsight:

creak crunch

creak crunch

Her lips are not mine,
but they are also not her own.

Someone put his dick in my mouth!
I want you to fuck me, one after another,
Then all at the same time!
Can you handle that?

We don't know what to do,
but figure that doing absolutely nothing
is a step in the right direction.
We exchange glances;
we twist in self-loathing
because each of us considers.

After all, she's a public schooler
After all, she is not marriage material.

Someone suggests we call it a night.
It becomes a night.
Torn from existence.

I walk her home, and
I tell her I love her.
She kisses my eyelids,
and writes a poem on a driveway
with a red rock:

Dan the Man!
You are my Uncle Jesse.
We will never be married,
but I love you, too.

She tells me I will father twin daughters,
maybe with her, but most likely not,
and that they will teach me
how to truly talk to women.

When she shrieks, Niggers!
on the 79th Street bus, plunging deeper East,
I apologize: She's sick. She's retarded.
She's drunk. She's from Scandinavia.
The passengers seem irritated more with my
attempts to smooth things over than with
the insult itself.

An elderly black woman approaches us,
leans close to my love's ear and whispers.
They embrace; the woman leaves the bus,
and we do not speak for hours.

I do not attend her funeral;
instead, I lie on my bed,
weeping with the ferocity
of a young man
who has heard the most
terrible noise of his life,
weeping like a young man
who has possessed
a most wonderful gift
only to lose it to his own reflection.

I do not attend her funeral.

It is October:
the ground is getting cold.