"How Good Girls Go Bad"

• Before she came we walked for peace, we picked
• up trash in parks and won awards. Our troop
• was number one in candy sales. We cooked
• for homeless families and served them soup.
• And then her dad was transferred to the base
• outside our town. I knew she was too cool
• for us. But when they offered her the choice
• between our club and military school,
• she cut a deal, suited up in our red
• and blue. She winked at me and stashed a pack
• of Camels underneath her scouting vest.
• And soon we’d lose ourselves to her, this chick
• who taught us how to steal from liquor stores,
• who littered on the streets and started wars.

Jackleen Holton works as an astrologer and intuitive life coach as well as a poet-teacher with California Poets in the Schools and Border Voices. Her poetry has been published or is slated for publication in Bayou, The Evansville Review, Pearl, Rattle, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Serving House Journal, and has appeared in The Giant Book of Poetry anthology. Her first collection, published by Caernarvon Press, is titled Devil Music. “Good Girls Gone Bad” was first published in City Works Literary Journal and is reprinted by permission. The author’s photo is by Diana Fowler.