She bush-pushed out jammers,
soul crushed the rest,
farm boys waved their caps,
exposing themselves.
She shouted-
In your dreams, limp-****!
Molly Magdalene taught her first:
if you’re going to be bad,
live your gimmick.
Juliet listened,
She was Demolisha:
roller derby queen,
brick hips and hair like barbed wire,
lips black as tar,
eyes smoked in coal.
I, her groupie’s part-time boyfriend,
was her tire iron, solid, used in crisis.
Rode shotgun in her truck toward Waco,
useful for singing Sinatra off-key
to keep her awake,
scribbling bios for the program:
Queen of Quake! Derby darling of devastation!
Empress of impact, Siren of slam!
"keep at it", she said.
At her father’s house
walking across the living room,
threading through a cave of trash bags,
yellowed newspapers, broken lamps,
into a back bedroom stacked high,
a hoarder’s shrine to nothing.
The bureau sat buried in the dark,
hard oak,
grain heavy as muscle,
something Juliet respected.
Her father stayed sunk in his chair,
TV glow staining his face,
cigarettes ground into carpet,
nicotine walls dripping beer sweat.
He barely nodded,
muttered bitterness,
as if we weren’t even there.
I knew then-
he had made her a villain
long before Molly Magdalene
polished her into one.
In Baton Rouge, gas station past midnight,
a boy appeared,
a Baby Ruthless shirt stretched across his chest,
skinny arms banded in green.
His mother, pink barbie sweatshirt,
a purse full of pens and candy bars,
watched him hold out
a crumpled receipt to sign.
Juliet bent low,
almost tender,
Then shouted:
In your dreams, limp-****!
And the boy laughed,
laughed like he’d won,
while his mother burned with fury,
damning her to hell.
*******, *****. Juliet countered.
Back in the truck
she sipped coffee bitter as ash,
rings rattling on the wheel.
“This,” she said,
“is what lasts.
Not when you’re bad.
When you’re the dirt worst.”
