Ode to Tonya Harding

A poem

---

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.