"8th GRADE LOCKER COMBINATION" by: Amy Pence
If you remember the numbers now,
maybe the rest of your life will click open
on easy street: a winning lottery ticket.
Even then, when it didn't jam,
you considered yourself lucky. Saved
from humiliation, from the dreaded
flicker of girls' eyes
that meant something--.
Yet you didn't think then
that the locker would open
to all these riches: these woods,
this love, this child, even the deaths--
how they come to you in many forms:
wingspans radial, the heron,
the hummingbird: the whir metallic--
approaching, receding again.
Improv':
High school at sixteen
You no longer hide the chin
whiskers, but still try to master
masking the red zits, colonizing
your face, with mom's foundation
cream. You're getting tired of
explaining why the make-up;
that if she would just let you be
a boy, swearing sex or even
a discrete hand-job is the cure.
Hummer's aren't too unreasonable.
You are sixteen and driving, big
backseats mean big things: like
how many friends will pile in, the
amount of gear (or beer) able to
fit, dates easily turned into quickies:
one-night stands made possible.
You didn't think then about the
service charge, the fees. Insurance
and lifetime warranties.
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