ONE NIGHT STAND

by Alessandro Manzetti and Marge Simon

All right, get it out.

Show us what you’re hiding

between your thighs.

The pack leader growls

making his switchblade sparkle

above Diana’s white face,

thin as a slice of fog,

turned to a silent, unknown sky,

while the asphalt bites her back

like only a hard memory

knows how to do.

Another wolf

—the dirtiest of the three—

with a siren tattooed on his neck,

and a silver Jesus Christ

hanging out from his tank top,

pulls off her panties,

savoring tears of beauty

and the rust of his drunken courage.

Look what we have here—

looks like a baby’s slit,

barely any hair down there.

Not a girl’s stuff, ah?

That little thing don’t belong there,

you know that? I’ll fix it for you.

He pulls out his shiv.

Old yellow buildings,

with their blind balconies,

huddle together to be less afraid

and to hide the street

—down there—

where Diana was looking for herself—

her all new female self—

for the first kiss at sixteen,

daring to grasp,

with her brand-new goddess name,

the reddest apple of the tree of life

on the tip of her first high heels.