We met through my boyfriend Bill.
She lived in our building
with her sister Julie.
I was just past fifteen,
but they were nineteen,
and the four of us banged quarters
over the rims of beer-filled coffee cups
the nights my mother was out.
She claimed to be a secretary, but really
she slurped old men on High Street all day
for twenty bucks a pop.
She sauntered home loaded with money,
and my other boyfriends scored her drugs,
and we sat stoned, our afternoons
rapt with laughter.
She was fatter than me, she was hardly pretty.
But she could convince any man
to jump toward her every whim.
She schooled me in bouncing
the quarter with my mouth, and that
is most of what I learned from her:
the plush pucker, the lush parting of lips.
She made miracles on my face and puffed my hair
so I looked older. We glided together
into dank Bottoms bars. She was a magnet
for those men's eyes. Every pivot in the place
swung toward her. I was glad for the chance
to bask in that light.
The evening before she disappeared,
no scent behind her, she French-kissed
my best friend with her red mouth and
her long, silky tongue. This is my most
recurrent fantasy: that it had been me.