Sweet sixteen in patched Levi jeans
and spaghetti strap tees, we walked
a mile to meet the bad boys kicking back
at the park, Newports nearly tumbling
from their bottom lips as they flicked
wheels to flint and waited for a spark.
We strolled in with six-packs
of Pabst and sass, asking for a joint
and a motorcycle ride, secretly wishing
for a date to the carnival or concert
or next beer bash. But we barely popped
the tops of our cans, had any chance
to joke or flirt or speak of summer plans
before dusk deepened to dark, before
he pressed me against tree bark, tightened
his vice of a body to mine, and grew
ten hands that grabbed everywhere,
even the hair at the back of my head to stop
my thrashing neck. By some dumb luck,
he could not trap my ten-alarm screech,
its siren rupturing his will.
Still, I often wake straining and mute,
knowing either he or the tree will swallow
me if I cannot scream. And what of her?
The one who breezed into the park with me
that summer eve, all cherry lip gloss and glitter
eyes, all cool façade melting on the inside,
all sweet sixteen with her firefly heart
waiting to spark.
Excerpted from GRABBED: Poets and Writers Respond to Sexual Assault, Empowerment & Healing by permission of the author and Beacon Press.
Brenda Cárdenas is the author of Boomerang (Bilingual Press, 2009) and the chapbooks Bread of the Earth/The Last Colors with Roberto Harrison (2011), Semillas de Achiote/Achiote Seeds with Cristina García, Emmy Pérez, and Gabriela Erandi Rico (2008), and From the Tongues of Brick and Stone (2005). She also co-edited Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance(2017) and Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest (2001). Cárdenas’ poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Latino Poetics: The Art of Poetry, Ghost Fishing: An Eco Justice Poetry Anthology, The Golden Shovel Anthology, POETRY,the Library of Congress’ Spotlight on U.S. Hispanic Writers,Angels of the Americlypse: New Latin@ Writing, The Quarry: A Social Justice Database, The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry, and RATTLE, among many others. Cárdenas served as the Milwaukee Poet Laureate from 2010-2012 and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
SWWIM Every Day is proud to present poems by women-identifying poets appearing at Miami Dade College’s 2020 Miami Book Fair.
Miami Dade College’s 2020 Miami Book Fair will host over 200+ authors from all over the world in conversation, in readings, in storytelling, all virtual, all safe, all unique, and all FREE between Nov. 15-22. Reading from their new work will be Diane Louie, Nikky Finney, Heid Erdrich, Jane Hirshfield, Danez Smith, Kazim Ali, John Murillo, Jen Karetnick, Jorie Graham, Kevin Young, among many others. And in conversation with Miami’s own Campbell McGrath will be these poets laureate: Robert Hass, Juan Felipe Herrera, Joy Harjo, among others. Access to Miami Book Fair 2020 is free. For more information and to register please visit MiamiBookFaironline.com. Follow Miami Book Fair @miamibookfair, #MiamiBookFair2020 #MBF2020 #MiamiBookFairOnline.
SWWIM will see you there!
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