First Blow Job
Was it lust or resignation?
A young girl's curiosity
or hunger's calculation
that made the twelve-year-old Marie
take the man's distended member
in her unwashed mouth?
The architecture of his face,
the rough wood floor that scraped her knees
while tinny, barroom tunes erased
the music of his moan and wheeze –
none of this would she remember
in the aftermath.
As she clutched her crucifix or
gripped his silver dollar in her fist,
as she drank the thick elixir
that burned inside her throat, like piss,
did God see all she surrendered
as she choked for breath?