In my youth, I fell in love
With poor white girls like Tonya Harding—
Strong-backed and lean
From fixing cars, washing
Dishes in industrial machines,
Waitressing at midnight,
Bucking haybales, and skimping
On meals when the money ran tight
At the end of the month.
They were reflexive Christians
with dirty vocabularies and raucous laughter. And, O, how they twisted their bodies and performed blue-collar yoga as they crowded into car trunks with other poor white girls so they could dodge the admission price for drive-in movie marathons.
During a Bruce Lee Fest,
I kissed one of them—
A pretty girl nicknamed
Sissy or Sweets or Smiles
Or something like that.
Sissy kissed me
While walking
From the snack shack,
And she said that I tasted
Like popcorn butter.
I think it was a compliment.
But I was too scared
To kiss Sissy again.
And I don’t think
That she cared
One way or another
About my possible
Affections. She seemed
To live at the drive-in.
It was her realm.
I didn’t go to the movies
Every weekend
But I think that Sissy did.
Sissy was the Junior Mints Debutante
and I remember how she’d run at the boys and men that she knew—run at those drive-in princes—some of them walking and some standing still—and leap onto their bodies, wrap her legs around their thin or thick waists, and do inverted sit-ups. She was Tonya Harding-strong.
Yes, Tonya, who
Was graceless but also
So powerful that she could jump
Impossibly high off the ice
And spin and spin and spin
In a way that no woman
Had previously spun
And hasn’t spun since.
But as you might recall
Or have seen on the big screen,
Tonya was spurned
By the figure skating elite
And cheated by the judges.
Tonya wore garish
Clothes and worse shoes.
She smoked cancer sticks
And drank watery beer
With prey animals printed
On the cans. Tonya was
A prey animal, cornered
By her shame and anger.
She clawed at her predators,
Real and imagined,
And maybe or maybe not
Abetted the battering
Of her beautiful rival’s knee.
But I’m not here to judge
Tonya’s guilt or her survival.
She’s already been convicted
And is serving her lifetime ban
From figure skating. But I think
That she, more than anything,
Was punished for being poor
And trailer-park white.
So I’m only here
To understand Tonya—
To offer her a few lines
of empathy. And I’m here to remember Sissy—my brief drive-in crush. And, hey, I want to honor drive-in movie theaters, those wild American shrines to the anti-Hollywood masses, to every rebel, huckster, sleaze, fool, and misunderstood genius who ever made a drive-in movie.
O, those outdoor screens
Were as large as the sails
Of royal ships.
Those drive-ins were one
Of the few places where
Poor girls like Sissy
Were sovereign queens.
Decades later, I saw her again in a Spokane supermarket. She was pregnant. Her kids kept throwing sugar cereal into her shopping cart. As patient Sissy placed the cereal boxes back on the shelves, she and I passed by each other. She glanced at me without recognition. She’d gained weight. So have I. That’s no surprise. We’re both hungry Americans eating to fill the empty.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” she said.
We were just another pair
Of friendly strangers. And yet,
In another life, I could be the rez
Indian boy who married Sissy.
Or maybe
She might have become
The single mother
Of our child
While I flew through
Their lives
Like a bi-weekly comet.
Or maybe we live together
Because getting married
Seems—oh, I don’t know,
So official—or maybe, maybe
We’re separated
But are trying to make it
Work for the children.
Maybe she and I are
Currently packing a picnic
For a family trip—
Somewhere close and affordable.
Maybe I’m making
The sandwiches
While Sissy brushes
The kids’ hair. Maybe
We pause at the front
Door as we leave
And say a little prayer.
Maybe we’re excited
That we have enough
Money to ride the tilt-a-whirl twice
Next weekend at the county fair.
Maybe we’re tired
Of the condescending stares
Of the superior folks who live
Up on Rich People Hill. Maybe
We get lost on our way
And meander through
Our city for hours or days,
Somehow unaware
That maps don’t care
About the poor.
But this is not my life now. And please don’t think I mean that other possibility to seem like a domestic nightmare. It’s just another version of what a poor Indian boy could’ve become. It’s what I could have shared with Sissy. We could have loved other so brightly that nobody could take the glare.
We could have been
The Duke and Duchess
Of our Favorite Bar.
We could’ve batted
Third and fourth on
Our city league co-ed
Softball team. We could
Be living the dream
Of having good jobs
With health and dental insurance.
We could be living a few vital
Steps up from minimum wage.
We could be ordinary
And extraordinarily happy.
But none of that happened.
It wasn’t supposed to happen.
Sissy and I are only
Intertwined
In the drive-in theatre
Of this poem.
I live in a four-bedroom in Seattle
And she lives elsewhere.
And that drive-in theatre—
Once so pure and spare—
Has been consumed by time.
It’s no longer there.
I love this poem Sherman! Our lives are formed by all of the small choices we make and our lives could be infinitely different if some of those choices were different. My high school sweetheart was an Indian boy and I was that white girl from humble beginnings. Our lives are woven into beautiful (and not so beautiful) threads and a stitch to the left or right changes the pattern(:
I love this one. What feral cat said👇. ❗❗❗🎯