You weren’t hearing Lauren Hill’s “Doo wop
that thing” but feeling it.
I gleamed diamond-like in campus shadows,
the down the hall between classes
five minutes to ten AM bustle.
In my short-tight I knocked your eyes out,
sir, prof. I loved the forbidden
going down
under your desk we weren’t supposed to be.
That morning in shadows of the crowded
hall, I looked dirty.
Slut, streetwalker flared in your mind
as sweetness.
You were thinking “Bev, you look like a slut
in that dress.”
That’s what I wanted.
That dark blue bit of next-to-nothing
fit my slim hips, not-much butt,
pipe thighs burgeoning. How I filled it!
My shortest, tightest, any shorter
would have gone right up to my crotch,
my womanhood, dark mystery from which
my children-one labor,
two, three-
came into the world.
I mostly wear jeans, slits in knees.
That day my dress clung to me
like love’s sweet flame, a tongue flickering
for my G spot, I stared
long in the mirror, grabbed car keys,
and walked out the door.

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Peter Mladinic’s most recent book of poems, Knives on a Table is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications.  An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA.