Maia Armistead
Cassie
We are in the off-season of our lives.
Neither of us have any friends, or a heater.
We wash dishes just to get warm. But
you drag me out on weeknights,
gossip loudly on the bus. You take me places
and make me dance. I’m terrible,
but you make me. Silver in the light,
Charlie’s Angels, so happily embarrassed.
When you dance you make me
take my hands out of my pockets.
You shout your breath in my ear,
tell me you’ve started seeing your face
in the faces of other people, and oh
it was so real. It was so real and
I didn’t like it. When we go home
we have to run for the bus, which
is almost dancing, but we’re back in
our raincoats again. Dark heads down,
stained blue and red in the light of
the Domino’s sign. It’s still early.
We say goodbye at the door.
Maia Armistead is a poet and student originally from Hamilton. She has been published in such places as Starling, Mayhem, and The Spinoff, and is one of the editors of Symposia Magazine.