By Vicki lorio
PROMPT — The way I see it ...
The summer when I play Motown
records at my friend’s house, Smokey hears
my friend’s father say the only good black man
is a black man who can sing. He hears my
13-year-old self tell him
he’s disgusting. He hears my friend’s father call me girlie as he
pushes me out the door. He hears me call my friend and ask
her to come to my house to play records. He hears her
father slam down the phone. At the end of that summer,
Smokey hears my sobs as my friend and her father move
to a different state. I feel Smokey’s cool when
I put on his records, when I remember dancing
with my friend—the Hustle, the Swim, dancing cheek
to cheek, imagining each other as the perfect boyfriend,
the perfect husband.
Smokey hears the sloshing footsteps of my mailman
when he delivers a letter to me in deep winter, a letter
sent in September— folded, wet, and torn. Lost in the mail,
a letter from my friend who wrote to thank me.
Vicki lorio is the author of the poetry collections Poems from the Dirty Couch (Local Gems Press) Not Sorry (Alien Buddha Press) and the chapbooks Send Me a Letter (dancinggirlpress), Something Fishy (Finishing Line Press), and The Blabbermouth (Alien Buddha Press). Her poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line journals including The Painted Bride Quarterly, Rattle, poets respond on line, The Fem Lit Magazine, and The American Journal of Poetry. When Vicki is not writing poems, she is either on her Peloton bike or drinking a crisp white wine. She writes from North Babylon, NY.
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