Metrosphere 2004-2005
Georgia
Her name hung in blonde,
split in two down her skull,
tucked behind each ear,
as if it weren't a wayward
path of dead blonde cells,
or the way back to her roots.
Georgia,
her speech underneath
her braces, slurred
sometimes and she
swallowed to check
her too-straight teeth
with her tongue.
Her sandwiches
made by her mother's
thin movements
of wax paper triangular folds,
white bread is the worst
for braces, filling in
like shellac. Georgia
cupped a hand over
her smile, while she
ran to the girl's restroom
to pick out the mess.
In Georgia's house
we whispered without knowing why.
She ate dinner
the same time everyday,
the dining room lit like a hospital,
no crunch to the meal.
Georgia gave me a present-
outside of any holiday,
in that Jehovah's Witness
mime of celebrating everyday.
A Bible.
A red clean square, gleaming.
Stiff, gold-paged, mine.
When I showed my mother
the small red bridge to orderliness
she snapped it from my hands.
"That's not the truth, honey."
I knew the truth,
that somewhere
in Georgia's house of hard corners
and clean windows, was newness,
previously unseen doctrines, like
untouched sugar cookies,
and chairs designated for
specific activities,
a place where truth
was a tiny, red, new book.
And Georgia, with God's
tame words,
sat in her neat blonde name for time.