She throws that heavy globe
so that it sinks in the dirt
a gash in semisoft mud
around the shoe-crushed wildflowers
and the gnats ring her hair like a crown.

She looks right at me while she drinks Gatorade,
pulling her sweaty bangs up over her face
and her eyes like a whole field of forget-me-nots.

The ball rolls forward and she grabs it,
squeezes it like a ripe pomegranate, almost takes a bite,
then wipes her mouth on her dusty arm.
 
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Jeannine Hall Gailey’s book, Becoming the Villainess, will be published in spring 2006 by Steel Toe Books. Her chapbook, Female Comic Book Superheroes, is available from Pudding House Press and from her web site, www.webbish6.com. She’s the senior poetry editor of Silk Road.
E-mail: webbish6 at hotmail dot com
More information on Jeannine Hall Gailey’s new book
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