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“Somebody to Love”

I bought this car to prove I could
and now, as I wait to turn left
a man exits the Quik-Stop,

black sweats sagging, pantlegs
shirred halfway up his narrow calves.
He’s probably my age, maybe even

a one-time middle-school messiah.
He slouches down the sidewalk,
knees hinging like a marionette

as if in time to Grace Slick,
who’s up so loud the ragtop throbs.
He gestures toward traffic with a tall-boy

then folds to the curb. How I envy him.
My tongue swells as the cold slides
down his throat, jaw slackening,

the world easing up a little.
My sister drank the same brand
when her check ran thin.

The last time I saw her
she drove up to the house, window down.
Come on, she said. It hadn’t been long

since I couldn’t say no, veins drawn tight
brain to toes—so I went inside.
I wish she was here. She’d settle down

on the curb beside him, light a cigarette,
put her hand out for his beer.
And he would give it to her,

the joke passing between their eyes—
me still in my lane
mouthing the words to the song,

you better find somebody to love.

Undertow


Newspaper crumpling, my sister
sops up vinegar from a bowl,
the window squeaking as she scrubs
at its watery promise.

She’s taller than me, even on her knees,
hair back, jaw set as her hand
circles then dips, circles then dips,
stops. Even I can see she’s distracted

from the messy house by sunlight
sliding through glass in long angular plates
as if life is about to bloom.
The ice in our mother’s glass shifts

and my sister’s braid sways,
her slender arm returns
to circling. I have no idea
who I will be without her.

Raise Every Voice, Except Not You, Fat Boy, You Stink

Start in G, she said
standing before us on a plywood pedestal
no, that was a lectern, us on plywood
steps, no those are called risers &
choir practice has begun.
How do I stand?
May I jam my hands into my hungry pockets
of worry, of embarrassment, of yet
another class to kill the time from
seven-thirty to eighteen years of age?
Deep breath, she says. Deep.
All boys here, unlucky you &
wait for someone else to lead
because I don’t know the song &
I don’t know how to diaphragm
breathe, how to rise to my pre-
pubescent range only boys have &
no, I don’t know, have no idea
where G is.