The Tastee Freeze

The Tastee Freeze

Previously printed in Out Loud Anthology III by Midwest Writing Center, 2009

 the young girl

 sits on the picnic table

 folded in on herself

 the quality of  her waiting

 borne from sitting in plastic chairs

 holding official documents

 when she stands

 her belly is exposed

 piercings pitiful

 against the newly stretch-marked skin

 a canvas of reddish-purple striations—

 on her wrist a dirty thread bracelet

 with a pop-top charm

 her eyes are old

 as her mother’s

 who is a not-so-patient mirror

 of what she’ll look like

 in 20 years

 worn, lined face

 teeth yellowed and missing

 voice raspy from too many cigarettes

 and generational disappointments

 but she is unapologetic

 wearing her paunchy after-bump

 with resigned acceptance

 no one in line

 even gives her a glance

 at 17-something

 her days of nubile energy

 are over

 and trapped

 in her mother’s life

 of women without men

 she takes her bare cone

 from the window

 eating it slowly

 and without relish

                      Katherine M. Searle