Tonight's Poet Corner: Minivan

Minivan
by Belinda Roddie

Ten teenagers piled into
a broken down uncle's minivan
with two bottles of Tullamore Dew,
a plastic jug of lukewarm sangria, and a
twelve-pack of apricot ale stolen
from an ignorant parent's refrigerator.

The first teenager popped the cap
of one bottle and let it fly
into the second teenager's forehead,
leaving a dent so precise that
it was like a crescent moon
etched into the skin of a stunned
moon goddess. The third and fourth

teenagers found a corner to kiss in,
while the last six juvenile jesters
turned up the radio as loud as they could
before the battery drained away and
the engine wouldn't sing to life.

And they all soaked the booze from
glass vessels of shame, and they
all climbed to the roof so the alloy
sagged beneath their knees. And they
all ran for the bushes when the cop car
whipped by, the silent streak lost
in the symphony of tires on the
wet concrete.