Lust set me off like wide hips bobbing
on the back of a bad boy’s motorcycle.

I can’t tell you when I first knew, but at some point
the idea of being a wild girl clinging

to a bad boy’s electric-fenced heart
and barbed-wire biceps set a wet whistle humming

through my center. Once, the boy down the street
said we should share our secrets. He showed me

burn marks on his arms. I showed him how
to take a bra off without taking off

a shirt; I shimmied it out of my sleeve
and dangled it out the window—gravity

plucked it from my fingers like a prompt butler
and then pulled both of us to the floor.

I’m a broken girl I go with the broken boys, I thought.
I’m a broken doll I go with the broken toys.

 

PUBERTY by Anne Champion

 


 

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