On the phone, she didn’t have to call it
danger. We all know how to flirt our way out
if you have to. Watch your drink, park under a light,
walk so you can see between the cars.
We held hands to leave, though they hooted
at us to kiss when they saw. But how else to
hide the shaking. Bruises on her ass, her
wrists, her thighs. She called them geography.
Bad joke. Lessons they don’t teach in school, although
we all learned. We went to the movies. Watched a man
stalk his way past boundaries. A happy ending. Romantic
violins played. Violence behind sloppily applied foundation.
Driving home in the dark she told me something
I cannot tell you. Guess. But I made her pull off the
road. Fears like tears rolled down her cheeks.
There was never a way out, no map in the jockey box.
Just two trapped girls, seventeen at
midnight, stopped in the parking lot
of an autobody shop, jamming broken
hearts together, trying to be whole.
