You Don't Know

How could you know us without the other
saying what it was like from over there?
Out of two hundred too few ever loved.
They held their rallies with the brass present
to keep things calm when voices erupted
in a blood lust some said resembled war.
We rose and spoke one at a time, the crowd
stomping the boards, banging their useless desks.
The cheerleaders cheered . . . but nobody knew
Nijinsky could leap higher than Preston,
who loved boys and Patsy, the sex goddess
of Granger High–even their folks were tight.
Patsy called herself Pat. She was quiet.
She rarely smiled, then only with Preston,
who specialized in forbidden stories.
When they were children they read Tijuana
Bibles and she practiced her moves on him.
If Pat could mesh with Preston’s libido,
who among boys who wanted to be men
could resist her coal-black hair, kohl-dark eyes,
and the way she not only looked but fucked,
crazy for Jim but in love with Marvin,
the basketball star, whose daddy was one
of Granger’s wild men wanting to be boys
again, playing music Saturday nights
at the Circle Inn, Jim and Priscilla
dancing like young lovers while their son slept.
Or so they thought. He was a virgin when
Pat took him with her rouged skin, lacquered nails,
staying under, over, by him as long
as he stayed awake. She taught him to please
Mary Lou, Elaine, Emily . . . who knows
the names of women he loved in football
colleges wooing him with scholarships,
lovelies who could not resist this body
all muscle over bone. So Irene said
Emily told her. Emily loved Jim.
Irene swore Mexican women could love
gringo men who were soft under hard shells.

(3 January 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander