Prime Time

Windows down Mom wore that paisley handkerchief

drove me and her barefoot careening through the sea of strip malls — drive-thru’s — supermarkets and from inside a sugar soundtrack

my side of our wide blue Chrysler

at the place of a girl becoming too fast and fried

I was nowhere else and this is where and when I was

Any girl

would wait for later if she could

wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she wait for the future?

For freedom closer than it seems

in rearview mirror?

For every father brother lover

to finally forget what they thought

they knew they feared?

But didn’t I go like the ones before me

to the neighborhood pool, walking through its metal turnstile

blue jeans paired with halter top and eye shadow sparkling

to sit on edge thighs splayed wide and hot

ripening as the water under the yellow sun

refracting every color of the light spectrum

calling me home to myself before I was the other sex?