panther woman with dark skinned
glare behind hair curtains – even
as a girl, she carried
ominous forces in her pelvis,
frightened lighter children with her
thunder stare and just the
smallest suggestion of a fist –
stereotype it is, but she
reached nobility for me just
by virtue of her savagery
cousin dan the garbage man
a silly rhyme defined a
phony future, hands much too
delicate for that – now my
fiction is: designer, skier, beach
boy who found mountains safer,
married, dinks in minks who
never have to hide their
toys like we did when
our cousins came to visit
foxy little kid who sat
in front of me – our
desks arrayed in rows, our
last names started with “F” –
got to know his dirty
ears, his freckled neck, his
ferret nose, enjoyed his sly
ways, funny alliterative name,
how he could sneak into the
hen house and steal eggs