PIGGY BACK
Mommy, I’m frightened, Sunday morning
as I reach for my pretty, the beaded strings
I hide in a jar. Mommy I love you
There’s a noise rat-tatting in my head.
It pops, repetitive, like skulls beneath a tire, a 911
voice compressing sound into solid. I hold
a steering wheel caught up in a Pulse, In club they
shooting, in broken maricá½¹n light, in butterfly wing
soft eye-shadow – I imagine two toddlers
wobbling, one pink, one blue, diaper-clad,
running a median, dysphoric in Orlando
along a broken – white – line. U ok
If I wasn’t fucked for being pussy I would slam
my break, hit hazards, drop to a knee on asphalt, hold
them equally, urge them gently – Trapp in bathroom
Set your burned soles in the squat of my hips,
climb on my shoulders, together we’ll make
a larger shadow as we stand.
First publication: The New Verse News, June 2016
