Literature 309B, Modern to Multicultural American Literature
- In the upper division Lit classes
- there’s a loose interpretation of truth.
- The instructor faintly prompts discussion
- and each student speaks, one at a time, as
- in a bookish courtroom, kids on trial.
- It reminds me of the halfway houses,
- rehabs, and camps for dangerous children;
- those helpless counselors, faintly prompting,
- and teenage junkies, just off heroin
- pitching lofty love advice to young drunks.
- Some lying, some too smart for their own good,
- in for a wash and a certificate
- as if it makes life easier out there.
- Some dying, desperate enough to pray.
Passing the Fitting Room
- A woman is pulling jeans up white thighs.
- They are too tight and she is bent
- squishing the dough of her legs into unforgiving denim.
- Tired breasts toss and heave in her shirt and
- a bright thong invades her furry behind
- like a snake strangling a fat bird.
- Craters and veins, patches of blue and yellow and purple
- painted on the wide canvas.
- As she slowly tips over, an impossible color of
- dyed red hair covers her face upside down.
- Her son, by the open door, wonders why.
New Years Eve
- The adults are drunk and
- acting like children
- and the kids are drunk,
- acting like adults
Robbie Forsyth is the son of a grocery clerk and a third-grade teacher. He studies literature at Cal State San Marcos.