Peter Scheponik: three poems

FIRST SEX

When I was seven, I sneaked into my sister's room.
In the corner of her dressing table
with the white scalloped trimming and lilac curtains,
I found Barbie,
blonde-haired, beautiful,
breasts without nipples,
a smooth slice of plastic between legs
that I opened slowly,
curiosity and compulsion,
searching for something hidden, forbidden.
But all I found were small rubber bands and tiny plastic hooks
that broke when I pressed too hard.
And she would never be the same,
her golden hair and elegant feet
that curved in a way that made me hungry,
American Barbie, every boy's dream.

SHARI'A

Shrouded in black burqa
the Afghan women move,
faceless shadows of Taliban,
lost in houses
with windows painted shut like eyes
to keep the light out
their lives inside,
locked away from view,
their lives removed,
hidden like chador faces,
no work
no books
no medicine
no looks
for widows, wives, or sisters
of house arrest,
buried between Koran pages
crushed beneath the flight of stones

SYMPOSIUM REVISITED

They called him "cocksucking fag,"
as they kicked him in the stomach,
bringing him down to zipper-level
stomped on his face,
his mouth red with their excitement
hot as sex, sticky as the blood
that dripped from his nose,
as they ripped the shirt from his back,
the hard, round buttons flying as free
as his naked body in the winter air,
the shy child of his penis retracted.
They hate-braided him, spread-
eagled to a wire fence binding him
as tightly in death as their hate
had bound him in life.