Cherry

Point Horror
on the twenty-five bus
along Holloway Road.
The only girl in my class
who reads books in public:
The Dead Game by A. Bates.
Flesh-coloured
tights make her thighs
look mannequin plastic
(which is a good thing.)
I tell her that books are shit,
that she should listen to music,
that she should hear my band.
(I am fourteen and fond
of my own body odour
and particularly, of brewing
duvet-heated micro-climates.)
Regardless, she was still quite
responsive and soon we were lying
on the floor of her attic room
(only later, I discovered, the same room
in which she had been physically abused)
listening to her mother’s Bjork album.
The unbelievable length of her pubic hair,
the noises she made (bad counterfeit
of Hollywood squealing
from films mostly starring
Michael Douglas
where the women huff
like espresso machines,)
the arching of her back
which was near perpendicular
at that age
and I came quickly
but I hardly noticed
and the adrenaline carried me full circle
and afterwards we laid out
and she cried
and told me the things
that her father had done.