Warpaint.

War Paint

The bell for dismissal rings. We rush down the hall

Towards our lockers, throwing our social studies books in our bags

For the test tomorrow: 1960’s American culture

We walk quickly home to fetch our rackets

Meeting back at the court to find none free

Taking  turns hitting the ball against the green wooden backstop of the end court

For a while simply feeling the rhythm as we discuss the latest boys:

Our targets. Their lips: our bulls' eyes

We trade secrets about the latest L'Oreal lip gloss, its shimmer drawing us onward

To the end cap at the corner drug store

And so we fall quickly, eagerly into an intimacy that came to us so easily then.

Back at home  we spy from the window of my brother's room

the soccer field beyond the gate

Parting the primary-colored football curtains to obtain the most discreet viewpoint

I stealthily borrow my dad's binoculars with the royal blue velvet-lined case

Slide them out, removing the plastic lens caps and putting them carefully back inside

We observe like fisherman for a while as the players grow tired and gather

To eat the grapes off the thick grapevines that lined my back fence

Tongues purple, legs sinuous and toned, sweat gathered but now evaporating

Within the coolness of the shade found there

I feel as if I am personally enticing them with the Dionysian fruit.

We place the latest by Dead or Alive upon the turntable as we

Darken our lower eyelids with the blackest eyeliner available

Maybelline:  the red pencil, always the red pencil

Lit with a disposable Bic lighter to make the black run freely

We slip one into each of our purses

And take off down the road, through the confines of the dusty expressway

1976 Delta 88, Medium metallic blue with a white vinyl top and velour seats

My blue sedan, tank-like, and ready

Complete with a withered, rusty hole in the driver's side floor

Eaten away by rock salt: the process and product of a cavernous northern winter

For this was our next mission, the most important

Our hair flying behind us, our optimism running as high as the engine’s RPMs.

We pull into the Franklin Street parking ramp, free after 5

To  survey like snipers from above

Peer below and nervously laugh as we plot our next move

Our teenage insecurities rolling over us

As we wait for the current chosen one to enter the bar below

Luring us by his potential future glances and attention

And so it and our descent begins

Down the ramps toward street level

My stiletto heels and her combat boots scraping and thumping

Resounding  echoes that bounce against the multitude of concrete surfaces

Of our post-industrial city at night:

Darkness passing over in order for us to see clearer

To navigate more precisely, for after all

Only nighttime will illuminate the mind’s recesses,

And so allow for our escape.