a girl named jackie looks into the mirror,
though she doesn’t see herself,
at least not anymore,
not for a long time,
not since perhaps she was seven years old
and was looking forward to going to an equestrian camp
in new england, where she met her first crush, vincent,
whom she shared a dry kiss behind the stables
while the other kids galloped about
in the air with no seatbelts
i keep floss in my car,
but i don’t eat anything in there,
though somehow there’s always food crumbs
on my floorboard,
i suspect it’s a sparrow sneaking into my car
when i’m at work,
snacking away on a few kernels,
and of course the sparrow doesn’t
need to use my floss either
the morning after getting my ass kicked,
i find it the most difficult to go to the bathroom,
especially to sit down on a cold, hard porcelain
that does not care what my body has gone through,
what my mind has yet to grasp,
as i wince
and hope that no one else heard me
Fred Aiken Writing 