Lily

14

summer heat sticks to us like tar,
hair clinging to our backs,
i cannot tell where the fairgrounds meet the junkyard.

i can feel sand between my teeth,
so i grit them real tight and try to push out the grains with my tongue.
lenita is sticking fingers in her mouth,
trying to suck off the taste of
candied fruit and cough syrup.

he says his name is dennis,
i flick my eyes sideways, tug the hem of my skirt upwards.
his fingers graze the fraying fabric, i count:
his hand, nine inches from the knee.
two coats of cheap mascara.
five weeks without rain.
seventeen years of middle-class make-believe.

lenita is the freeze-dried beauty queen of the southwest,
teaching me the art of seduction through slightly parted lips.
every movement is calculated, lenita can
chew up the heart of a loyal husband and spit out the wedding ring
with a backwards glance and a turn of the heel.
i can hear lenita laughing now,
pronouncing me the lolita of the rio grande,
watching me from the back of my brain.

i’d like to think dennis is a good man,
even if he’s a terrible kisser.
his hand is sliding up my thigh,
the pad of his thumb pressed urgently against bare flesh.
i untangle his mouth from mine,
letting slipknot desire come undone.
lenita says girls like me are supposed to teach
blue-eyed cowboys how to want.

i walk back through the fairgrounds,
people dwindling in and out of tents like ghosts,
rodeo bulls kick at the the dirt with bleary resentment,
a fine dust settles in my marrow.
flea bitten dogs with eyes the color of dry grass run past
the hot-dog stand, where the odor of fried food and burnt meat circles the air like
flies crowding over a piece of roadkill.
everything feels thick, clouds trickling like molasses, sky dimmed by the dull haze of august,
broken bottles and drunk ranch hands,
moaning at me with horsefaced vulgarity, i look straight ahead.

lenita has bought salmon for dinner,
but we can’t clean it in the trailer because
it would smell like fish for days,
so she takes a cutting board outside and
cleans it cross-legged on the dirt,
cutting through the meat with precision,
she ties her hair back with a flick of the wrist.

i shuck the corn while
lenita tosses some guts to birds who lurk nearby,
squawking desperately for a bite of something better.
“the birds have no shame in begging,” she laughs darkly. “why should we?”

lenita is smiling, her mouth aching with hurt,
a subtle ferocity drawing lines of deep anger across her complexion.
she begins to clean the fish more slowly, with short strokes,
she is stabbing the fish again and again with the knife.
i look away out of courtesy, busy myself with the corn, but i can hear the
smack of tears against the cutting board.
i only look back when i hear lenita scream,
the salmon is splashed with red,
her fingers are back in her mouth, sucking,
she turns her head away in shame,
spits blood onto the woodchips.
the beggar birds haven’t come back since.