BACK-SEAT BRENDA

I was in love with back seat Brenda
We all were.
But I was at that age
Where I still called my friends lesbians
Because I did not know what it meant.
I was in love with back seat Brenda
And how could you not be.
She had a peardrop smile
And eyes that twinkled like gobstoppers
After
Twenty
Minutes
Of
Sucking.

8:15 at her bus stop
And fifty homemade hair-do's
Turn to watch her hipsway
Inhaling the medicated shampoo
And her mothers stolen perfume
Which batted away the heavy smell of boyhood Brut.

I fidget and fumble
(still)
Shifting position of my satchel
From hipside to crotch
Concealing my growing admiration
For that High-school crest
Displayed magnanimously on her heaving chest.

There was an eternity
between
The hem of her bottle blue skirt
And the summit of her knee-highs
That I would gladly suffer.
Her bra strap always showing,
I thank God for the French.

4 o'clock and
We were all in love with Brenda
The world could have been hers,
And silk cuts are the greatest cigarettes
Because her lips are fellating one.
I shift uncomfortably,
Readjust my satchel once more
And allow Alison to sit beside me.