Twenty Three

                              
Motherless Daughter
                                          Kofi Fosu Forson

Where do I bury these lonesome boys? These romantic American jocks looking for love, the dysfunctional kind. I wasn’t like the others. They made steak with French fried potatoes, held hands while walking through Central Park and even cared to spend the night on their birthday. I am a motherless daughter. I raced through these boys like a Testarossa. A hit and run took my mother from me. I am a motherless daughter.

Pigtailed, wearing platform shoes, I walked among the punks. They came dressed in rock and roll black. They had names like Einsturzende Neubauten and Fugazi on their tee-shirts. We were misfits. We smoked Camel cigarettes. When I felt like it, I shaved my head or got a tattoo. It never bothered me. The girls I cruised with were “it.” They looked the part and played the part. They were “it.”

The borough boys fell in love with me. I never made the spaghetti or sat with them while they watched the Yankees. Behind their backs, I played the field. I found me a lonesome American jock. I hit it. Backseat, hotel room, I hit it. Home run after home run! He spoke like a drill sergeant. He raised that arm when I started to bitch. We were Brooklyn. Anybody touched me wrong, there was hell to pay.

Who didn’t go clubbing? We all went clubbing. Who woulda thought? He was a dee-jay.

Every night I went over, I wished I was the turn-table. I wanted his hands doing that thing they do, all over my back. He was a flunk from the local college. He loved slam-dancing. His hair was made up into spikes. I got all soft inside when I saw him dancing. There’d be people all around him. His boys! He turned, pumped his fist, jumped up and down, bumped and grinded. All I was thinking was, “I could have you faster than you could run home to see the Giants win the Super Bowl.”

It wasn’t long before I had him inside his dorm room. It’s all fine and good when they can’t make up their mind. When it’s all said and done, I get ‘em either way, with my legs in the air or my face against the pillow. I didn’t know whether I wanted him to be my father, brother or lover. I had him. That’s what it was. I liked him. But that’s what it was.

Back in high school, he was the king of the locker room. He gave up football for strippers. I laughed when he wanted me to laugh. We had our days drinking at the bars, thinking with our devices, his dick, my pussy.

That miserable winter, I shaved my head totally bald. The air made me strong. He dyed his hair purple. My lonesome American jock! He did all he could to beat the cold. Heard he had a few strippers. They had nothing on me. I took him places. In that tiny room, I took him places. He started beating himself up about his future. What he wanted to do. What he didn’t want to do. I got bored. So I ran. I ran to Italy. The men drank wine. They had long hair. It was so easy falling. They were vulnerable. When I wanted to hear music, they played me a guitar.

Long live the American jock! Men don’t get it. Some girls do with their minds what men do with knives. I get the urge on lonesome nights to fuck. Home is where I cry, “Mother?”