Poetry: Girls like Marissa by Emalisa Rose

Girls like Marissa

 

This time, it’s polkadots, white

and magenta. Hers was a set -

boots, hat, umbrella, even the slicker

in sync. They hung in the cubby

next to my own. Mine -

“nondescript, but yet functional.”

 

She’d smile and she’d wink with

her pearls of white teeth, all aligned,

unlike mine, aching for braces.

 

Mom said I’d get them when Dad’s

job got steady and maybe some

“fancy” clothes, girls like Marissa had.

 

But between teeth and umbrellas

plain stuff and fancy stuff and hearing

a friend of her dad’s gave her top tickets

and passes backstage, to see Davy Jones

and the Monkees, it was too much to bear

for this thirteen year old.

 

Rainy day Rockaways, late 1960’s.

 

When I learned about plastic spoons,

silver spoons, desire and envy.

 

(Though I have to confess, given the chance

to change lives with her, at that time,

in a heartbeat, I’d have done so)

Emalisa Rose, when not writing poetry, enjoys crafting and leading a birding group on Sundays. She also volunteers in animal rescue, tending to cat colonies in TNR programs. Her latest collections are On the Whims of the Crosscurrents, published by Red Wolf Editions and This Water Paint Life, published by Origami Poems Project.