shot glass
title
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare

Karen Harryman


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1985

Little sister sleeps with a stuffed pony named Firefly.
All Russians are tall, red-faced and angry from the cold.

On a fence surrounding the last cornfield
in town you paint shit, piss, and cum wad in red

nail polish. Tracy doesn't want to go to the dance with you.
She wants to ride in cars with cheerleaders and

basketball players. Wants to drink wine coolers, squeeze
the soft aluminum caps into silver half-moons, watch them

bounce up from gravel roads. Girls at school get into fights
over boys. You are playing dodge ball when they carry Carla S.

out of the restroom. "The sinks" a shy girl whispers, "were
pink with her blood." There are wrecks, too. Popular girls

die. You get out of school early for Angie T's funeral,
wait in a line stretched through town to see her body,

catch a slow ride to the cemetery, jealous, even
of her tombstone–heart-shaped and pretty.