poem of the day 11.18.13

dara smith’s ass

there was dara smith’s ass

right there on display in her kitchen

a minute before that

i was looking at baseball cards

with mitchell and dara’s sister viviane

when the two girls got into a fight

and viviane pulled dara’s sweatpants down

then there was her ass

dara smith’s thirteen year-old

held-back-twice-i’m-a-bitch ass

and no one went to pull her sweatpants up

not viviane

not mitchell

who covered his eyes

and kept saying, oh my god, oh my god

like seeing dara smith’s tight basketball playing

track and field running, swim team ass

was such a bad thing

dara didn’t even go to pull up her pants or cover her ass

she just leaned stomach-side against the wall

with her hands over her face, laughing

saying oh my god, oh my god too

i couldn’t help but look

even though i hated dara smith

because she was always calling me fat

and because she told all of the neighborhood kids

that ray ray and i were fags

and he and i were currently fighting over that

but an ass is an ass

i knew that at thirteen years-old

and even though this one belonged to dara smith

i was going to look for as long as i could

memorize it and maybe use it against her

when mrs. smith walked into the kitchen

and said, what in the hell is going on here?

before she pulled up dara’s sweatpants

and pulled viviane out of the kitchen by her hair

as mitchell and i

scared shitless

ran out into the february cold

catching our breath a half mile later

to talk about pitchers and catchers heading to florida

and how much we both still loved

miami vice.