potential slam candidate and penance for yesterday

dropping in on my dad's art class
there's a girl from the trailer park
tryna play show and tell
with the other girls

she's wearing
her older brother's jeans
and a hot wheels t-shirt.
her name is Sam

and i can see those other girls aren't
listening to her, they wonder
why she isn't samantha
and why she's wearing boy
clothes but she doesn't care
she's bored

and runs over to me with a
gartersnake in a plastic
terrarium and says
"wanna see?"
and somethin kinda clicks
in me and boy is she glad i'm not
like the other girls, all scared
of snakes
and i think
she's pretty cool even though
i'm eleven and she's maybe nine
and that's totally not
cool
cuz
when i ask my dad about her after class
he makes a face. there was a remark
that i did not understand. she was a tough nut
at nine years old and probably my neighbour
but i never saw sam again.

i wonder what happened to her.
i wonder if she kept those jeans.
i wonder about the first time she tried lipgloss
off another girl's mouth i wonder if she got beat up
if she played football if she ever came out
got out or was locked out of her body like me
for so long

maybe she's a welder, or something.
maybe she's got a bunch of babies.
maybe i am the only one who remembers this
baby butch before i knew the word
thinking she was the coolest thing i'd ever heard of

but i had forgotten about this 'til you got the snake.
look at how proud it is livin' in the dirt-
crawls on its belly and makes girls scream but
i think it's just beautiful.