by Kindall Jackson

 

From the carbonation of memories

shimmering with my teenage mythology,

Josie Aguair breaches the surface, shaking off the froth

still clinging whitely to her feet. “Don’t be a fucking pussy,”

she says, voice gleaming like the bleached concrete

beneath our flip flops as her freshly painted nail—the smell

still hot in my nostril—brushed against my cheekbone, leaving

a guideline of green paint, intuiting the adult face crowded

by a template of baby fat. We hid the wine in our purses

and bought Doritos, swaying our hips and singing Radiohead.

“Please tell me you ladies are eighteen,” said the man at the register,

his face bordered by a bonnet of yellow hair, a sunflower turning

toward us, trying to absorb the sunlight gilding our legs. “I’m over a thousand,

I am Jesus, Amun-Ra, Montezuma, Lord of the Flies, I am the motherfucking

Queen of Versailles!” She trumpeted as we pulsed through the door,

laughing and blessing everything under the name of made up gods.

 

The last time I saw her, Josie had kissed me.

I remembered how her small, high breasts had pressed against

my arm as she navigated my mouth, and how when she pulled away,

her smooth, tan face, cooled by the light of the TV,

had filled up

like a glass stilling as it filled with sound,

preparing to reverberate.

I remember telling her that we shouldn’t be friends anymore,

that I wasn’t into girls and that she should leave. But sometimes,

when I kiss my husband, I can still feel the heat

rolling softly from her tongue.