When Girls Fight

There were no rule books for girlfights.
It was a mayhem of pushing, mutual struggling,
our posture almost Greco-Roman,
the nobility spoiled by biting and scratching, dirty play.

There were no lesson books for girlfights.
We were two young she-beasts wrangling in the yard
then grunting in the alley amid garbage cans and flies.
We drove our knees into each other’s stomachs.
We shoved.
We pinched.
We scowled.
We yanked at hair.
Joanie’s hair was short and wiry.
Her tanned skin bore a horsy gloss
and smelled tar-like, milk-like.
Tar-dark, milk-white were her eyes.
I saw my own eyes mirrored in their arctic glare.

There were no trophies for girlfights
and no commiserations.
After, in our dim kitchen,
my mother poured peroxide on my scratches
and swabbed them with Mercurochrome.
She washed my face and tamed me into braids.
Then she screamed at Joanie’s mother on the telephone.
She screamed like a she-beast and tore her own hair.