© 2022 marie c lecrivain
Drop it like it’s hot.
If you’ve ever dropped your daughter
alone at the mall
Fifteen. Ponytail. Lipgloss & jeans.
Dropping her alone “to shop.”
Leaving her unleashed to meet “a friend.”
Offering her scrubbed, shined & young
a pan of hors d’oeuvres, wearing her
died & went straight to heaven grin.
If you ain’t never cheesed a lie
waved & said, “Bye, ya’ll have fun.”
Did the long fake-out waltz
like you strolled to your car
doubling-back, watching them
stop at Hot-Dog-On-A-Stick
where their soft kiss spears your own lung.
Becoming bloodhound, watching them roam
stalking through coats, shoes or scarfs.
Becoming mall-cop, espionage Mama.
A female James Bond
feeling a time-bomb tick in your bra.
If you’ve ever clocked a walk
hunted behind T-shirts & feet
feeling the raw heat of murder
while smelling fries and Dior
teetering between slaughter
and please Lord, make the boy sweet.
Creeping around Footlocker
or Starbucks corners
pretending to like shit you don’t need
eavesdropping while pretending to read.
If you’ve ever dropped your daughter
and fell on all fours
sniffing up pretzel blood
letting your hem lick the floor
forgetting you wore a skirt
stifling a growl between molars.
hounding See’s Candy teen love
going store after store
then baby, you ain’t never lived.
© 2022 Pam Ward
The Wig
Something about being beat
bad as a kid makes you drool
when some cruel shit rips
somebody else’s neck.
It was the day I found
that dollar blending
in the grass after school
some fool’s lunch money lost.
I scooped it up checking
to see who was watching
when I caught the tail-end
of a pack of kids
racing full force
toward 54th street.
Back then a group meant
a fight had broke out
so I ran down to
check out the action.
Jackie wore a grape wig
in fifth grade
fluorescent like those
Jolly Rogers sticks
spiked rigid, badly fitting
her head it was way too big
and we laughed saying
it was probably her mama’s.
Lisa said she had this skin
disease that caused all
her hair to drop off in
large clumps and we always
thought it was cancer
but that didn’t stop us
from following her home
calling her Bee-hive
Bullet-head
or Purple Brain bitch
in that mean sing-song
chant that kids tease in.
Phillip Brown and Imit Ricks
had her cornered in the back
of Holy Name’s parking lot
holding books to her breasts
like a modern day Magdalene
praying to them 'please stop,'
tears hammering her dress
everyone screaming,
"Just take it off! TAKE IT!"
Imit pushed her good
and she tripped to her knees
her homework wept from her arms
as he pranced around and danced
smacking her upside the head
ranting & cursing like crazy.
Phillip had the wig in one hand
standing over her like God
and she's clutching it with both fists
her toothpick thin arms
working good not to lose it
and she begged them, “please quit,”
like we did when he whipped us.
But that's when Imit
just ripped it right off
bobby pins shot through the air
her whole face a sad
awful wreck as it went
tossed to a corner like a prayer.
I remember we all got real
quiet after that, gawking
at the horrible bald
patches of droopy strands
hanging limp like a street dog
and I walked home
not wanting to go in
and hid in the yard
holding my dollar
pitching small rocks
at the fence.
© 2022 Pam Ward
Designer/Writer, Pam Ward recently released her poetry book Between Good Men & No Man at All, World Stage Press. She also published two novels, Want Some Get Some, and Bad Girls Burn Slow, Kensington. A UCLA graduate, recipient of a California Arts Council Fellow, a Pushcart Poetry Nominee, Pam has published in Chiron, Calyx, Voices of Leimert Park, and the LA Times. She's currently working on a novel about her aunt’s dalliance in the Black Dahlia Murder, an event that shocked the world, happening in Pam’s own backyard. www.pamwardwriter.com
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