MARLENA CLARK


Playing Pretend


My Daddy lets me braid his beard
into eight or ten little twigs
sticking straight out, black and gray.
He says he looks like Zeus
when I do this. To me,
he is.

I put his hair in pigtails
when we dance to the oldies,
the twist, the shag, sometimes some disco,
and when George Jones comes on, we dance
like we will at my wedding.

Sometimes my Daddy cries,
and I wipe the tears away
carefully, pretending
he has dust in his eyes,
making my days into
jokes, just to hear him laugh.

Most of the time, though,
we just sit together
at the table, staring out
the window, wondering
how my mother
could have left.





Growing Up


You were so clumsy
in your excitement
I had to undo my jeans

myself. The backseat
was full of trash
and I could smell the stale

fries and your sweat.
I should have said
never mind, I'm only

eighteen. But it was too late,
my right leg pressed
against the window, left

foot crammed in the tape deck.
And when you began
to slobber on my neck,

I was sorry I agreed
to do it, feeling older
and older with every thrust.





Michael


Remember me? I stayed
at your friend's mother's house,
lying on the couch watching
soap operas and drinking vodka;
playing bored housewife. I winked
my eye and you came to me
like a cabana boy in Palm Springs.
It wasn't so hard
to convince you,
and I believed
you loved me. But then
your friends found out, and the whole town
started calling you fag. Then, just to show
you weren't, you knocked
up some high-school girl.

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