Poetry by Sonia Werner

 

Thirteen


Linda takes the whiskey bottle by the neck
and I can tell from the white of her knuckles
that she is hlding it tight.
Just do it, Janey giggles:
the brown elixir rimming her lips
like candy
or insect blood, here:
Like this:
And suddenly it's as though Janey were born
with the sleek glass
of a Jim Beam flask
balancing on her chin.
Nothing moves.
Like this
Except the soft flesh of Janey's neck
which jumps rythmically
with each sucessive swallow.
She is a professional.
And for the first time I realize the structure of her ribs
and how the kool-aid in her hair is glowing brighter
illuminated by the last day of school sun.
Linda's jaw tightens,
her asian eyes widening into perfect moons
and i forget that the blacktop is sticking to my thighs
that my mother has already resigned herself
to the muted drawl of the evening news
and the dull fade of our couch.
There is only the fire-engine of Janey's hair
the distant whine of a swing set
and a bottle playing with the light.

 

 

The Slap Bracelet

The slap bracelet
arrived when summers
were sweaty
and we tasted
our middle school dreams
over slurpies
and first cigarettes.

Long after rubik's cube
and long before this day
of digital pets
who perish
when not fed
our generation
wore slap bracelets
like paisley pythons
sucking on our wrists.

With each successive slap
of our violent jewlery
we sighed out contentment
until some boy or some girl
in somewhere, america
went up to the sky
with the pop rocks kid
who had exploded
two years before.

Don't slap too hard
we learned as we imagined
the fatal hit:
appendages dropping off,
the prospect of finding
whole hands on the playground
and piles of half eaten children
whose wrists were devoured
by its cold metallic gut-

The thought ran our blood cold
and we were forced to bury
our slap bracelets
along with the rest of
those fleeting
tokens of the youth ride,
now quiet
forgotten
and dusty in the attic
of our minds.