Debbie

Debbie

At sixteen he wore an afro and granny glasses

He leaned in doorways like Linc from Mod Squad

sullen monosyllabic studied insolence.

He would skip math with Debbie.

Debbie was his best pal.

Years later he realized she was Japanese.

They would cross the

street to Jimmys Restaurant in a tiny  run down suburban mall.

ditch their brown paper bag lunches

and order instead, french fries with  gravy,

two cream donuts and cherry cokes.

Debbie was the editor for the high school year book.

Instead of math class, they would sit at Jimmys

and pretend to understand Sarte.

She shoe horned his poems about jacking off and

pissing blood and phallic trains in tunnels  into the poetry corner .

He hated the poetry corner.

She was a Kamikaze Pilot of Poetry and

he was Shaft, a black secret agent in tight leather pants.

She knew he wanted to crash and burn

and she was happy to  help.

At times it seemed she maybe even wanted

to  crash and burn with him.

Such was their suicidal bond.

They never had sex . That was regrettable.

Their intimacy was severe in nature . They traded pain

and they would have merged like  vampires

had they traded bodily fluids.

Virgins never know how to unbutton buttons and

lower zippers. They think it’s embarrassing.

Later they will learn sex has nothing to do with friendship.

Sex, at least the good kind of sex, is always predatory.

It was all worth it if you could dive bomb a few

war ships, and be an international spy over

chocolate cream donuts and cherry cokes.

Derek Earl Houghton