Kathy Lied
By: Dom Maltempi
9-8-06
The best summers I remember are like water gun fights when you run out of water
Still smiling, maybe till it hurts
Bedraggled participants shake and embrace
Someone runs the two miles home past a corroded mailbox on a shady street
Slimed by a secretion from some hallowed name
unfairly despised grader school kid from years back
just to show you something they wrote
Not Kathy though
She wouldn’t write I love you on a pizza crust
sitting on some red tray
oven opens and closes
Smeary dark ink on crust chewed remains
Kathy wouldn’t bother to write her favorite band name or symbol
on the same pizza curst with a fancy question mark next to it
meaning: “They rock, no?”
She was as friendly as the pictures of an ice cream truck that were never for sale
Moody rocket pops being the only actual salable item
The four colored milk shake that burped the universe back into harmony
Nothing more than a honk-honk ice creamed convicts big illustrated gag
Kathy lied
Her father didn’t have pancreatic cancer
She just wanted someone’s boyfriend to make out with
Maybe a Peter Shneider and his stupid janitorial bravado
Preferably Kimberly the Thunder bird hooker hood poseur’s man
The one with the inexhaustible wardrobe of million dollar blue jeans
How many White Snake videos must one watch
before the hubcaps shine without assistance
Making the larch limbs snap operatically
Ruining a shadow spot coveted by scores of can collectors
I called her itchy stockings
My brother too
She never wore stockings
It was her face that screamed out ITCHY STOCKINGS
a dull smirk, her sing song vacillating need for constant confirmation of her conceits
Kathy admired the worse of the new wave dance bands
Kathy lied and the anchovies came back to life in a new imaginary sea
Even desperate teen Maltempi
as desirable as an enflamed pee-pee stream ricocheting malevolently
would not twirl a finger in that dour nest of chestunutty hair
no no no
Kathy lied