Sixteen year old girls hold
the answers to life.

They have ***
(with boys who have girlfriends,
across the front seat of an El Camino,
parked two houses down from her own,
where her parents await her return
no later than ten, unaware
that while they watch Jeopardy, their daughter's
hair rubs and frizzes against upholstery
that is older than her, and her head
occasionally bangs against the dark sidewalk
facing window, with a deep,
but gentle, thud)
and call it love.