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LAGNIAPPE

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THREE POEMS
by Daphne Gottlieb


bikini killer

at 4, it's already clear
that mimi's going to grow
up to be one of those ladies
her momma calls a "fame fer tall"
one of those cigarette-swilling heartbreakers
who strides in
and gets things going
like a party
or a murder

mimi's got those 4-year-old
high heels on, those
coffee-can romper stompers
strapped to her feet
with the ribbon laces
that match her bathing suit

the ants scramble out
of the guillotine clank of her walk
as she sh-clanks her way
up and down the sidewalk
slicing worms in half with
a single-minded step
the art of the crush

makes her the terror of the insect world
but the she's the darling of every
dog on the block
want her like nothing
can't take their eyes off her
drool for her
whine to the shine of her step
nose to her like fresh bones
no one's seen anything like it
the dogs

won't leave her side
jostle each other for her
attention
and skulk home when she goes
in to dinner

she's born to break
hearts and like any good
minx, she's got her secrets

cherry kool-aid
makes her lips red

"please" gets her
what she wants

and she never gives up
the leftover meatloaf
she hid
in her bikini bottoms.

the rough rider pulls it tight

it was the fourth cosmopolitan that made the condom break or the fourth cosmopolitan that put it on.

she was wearing her cowboy shirt that night and she liked the way he called her cowboy, she liked him, liked his eyelashes and his soft consonants, his way of nodding when he listened until after the condom broke that night and then she didn't like anything.

she didn't know the condom broke until he was fucking her behind her and he said unnh from behind her and then uh-oh from behind her he had gone to tie it in a knot but when he saw the end was open
his cum leaked all into her and on his hand and she grabbed the edges of her cowboy shirt and snapped it together again and jumped up and down like there was desert burning the bottom of her feet and yelled GODDAMNIT GODDAMNIT she's not the bridle type not the hitch type and jumped up and down because she'd heard it helped and he said no -- c'mere c'mere s'okay with his tequila slur and so she went there and told him no, i'm on day eleven i'm right in the middle and he said s'okay, s'gonna be okay,
and he stroked her hair until he fell asleep but he was making the bed too warm and she couldn't sleep
and she got out of bed and wrapped a blanket around her and that didn't work so she went to the shower and tried to wash him off of her (but not inside she heard you should never do that inside unless it was coca-cola maybe coca-cola would stop it but she didn't have any and no stores were open) she screamed goddamnit goddamnit under her breath as she brushed the cosmopolitan out of her mouth
and went back to bed wethaired and watched him sleep and breathe too loud through his nose and she hated him that he could sleep and didn't know how to get back to his soft consonants and his eyelashes since
it was all wrong now and he opened his eyes and slurred
whatcha doin over there, babe, c'mere, not sleeping's not gonna help and he wrapped his arms around her like a cinched saddle and she felt like she was going to vomit so she grabbed her alarm clock
from the side of the bed and wrestled with it until it rang
and watched him stagger into his clothes and didn't make him coffee and barely said
goodbye and locked the door and called in sick and called the clinic and took the bus and the nurse
weighed her and brought her into the exam room where everything was baby blue and the nurse said

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'RE HAVING A BABY!

and the nurse's back was turned when she said no, i'm here for the morning after pill and the nurse left
the room without saying anything else and the doctor came in and asked, didn't you use protection?
but didn't give her time to answer, the doctor just ushered her feet into the cold stirrups and checked
the saddle sore cowboy for nine different diseases and it pinched and burned and her cervix ached
and her bladder stung and she got two small pills to take every 12 hours

so she went home and took the first pills and wondered if he was at work or home sleeping and it was noon and she could call him but didn't want to talk to him so she went back to bed, covers over her head, thinking (90 percent effective), thinking (a shot if it doesn't work), thinking (he owes her money), thinking (she doesn't want to ask him for a damned thing) thinking (not the bridle type not the hitch type)
and then it was midnight and she took the second set of pills thinking (blood clots in the brain), thinking (cab to the hospital), thinking (soft consonants), thinking (dangerous
to live alone),

and then the alarm clock said it was 2 a.m. and everything ached and she wondered if he was out drinking or sleeping in someone else's bed and he hadn't even called her and the clinic hadn't called
to tell her they'd found nine different diseases in her petri on the radar range so she blew
her nose into the damned cowboy shirt then threw it into the laundry and

then the alarm clock said it was 4 a.m. and her eyes were sticky and her veins were small and her ache
was big so she picked up the coiled lasso of the phone and called her friend far away, the one who used to wild the west with her with her and it was 7 a.m. on the east coast and because her friend knew how to hold the unraveling ends in early morning, in a voice thick as a knot because cowboys knot it tight, not loose and nothing gets away her friend told her the rabbit goes around the tree...

so she said and down the hole... and they both were

quiet

until she broke it and said, i had a nightmare and couldn't shake it and her friend sighed the 4 a.m. campfire sigh, the last flicker lick coal sigh and said, i used to have that nightmare all the time

and they sat in the dark, breathing as quietly as they could, since the sigh sound tears make crawling down cheeks can wipe the cowboy off you and you never see a cowboy cry, not even in the predawn mornings
of lonely postcosmopolitan cities

when the best you can do is go around the tree, down the hole, back up, and pull it

tight