SLAM!

December 8, 1980

Girls’ night in,
four of us will gather
in my first apartment
to commemorate landmarks
propelling us into adulthood.

Beer in Looney Tunes glasses,
served with a dollop of friendly hazing
punctuating the white noise of Monday Night Football;
each arrival will make her grand entrance,
take center stage to celebrate -
first apartment,
first real job,
first rock-on-third-finger,
first gallery exhibition.

Somewhere between the third and fourth toast,
somnolent droning of the television changed,
demanding attention, as
Howard Cosell, in his droll gravelly voice announced
John Lennon had been shot.

Eyes locked open in stunned disbelief,
compelled to witness the unfolding horror,
nothing could be more surreal,
nothing more senseless,
nothing, until I answered the phone;
learning over noisome trilling hospital bleeps
just how the night’s miasma of evil
had reached out to touch us more viscerally.

As music lay bleeding to death in the street
our fourth lay bleeding, beaten, raped;
her spirit broken, her art destroyed,
her fire quenched at its spark.

Girls’ night in,
we wept,
mourning the landmarks
propelling us into adulthood.


© 2006 manga_kate

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Special Thanks to kelly1202 for my Sig and Gossamer Angel Wings


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