The Blue Moon Review

Me & River Phoenix
by Pamela Gemin

When me and River
go down to the mall,
he steers me past racks
of crushed velvet skullcaps,
lace-piped magenta leggings,
leather thong pendants tied
with peace signs and ankhs.
His own skinny knees popping 
out of his jeans,
he elbows me up escalators
where ladies' wrinkle-free knits
and cardigans hang
in their solid neutrality:
English teacher clothes.

Yet when we're in the record store
he looks down his nose
when I stock up on R&B classics,
implores me to give Blind/Smashing/Screaming
Lemon/Melon/Pumpkinheads a chance;
and when me and River
do lunch at the food court
he scolds me for scarfing the nachos
and dairy dessert I bought
just to see him roll his eyes.

In the flickering dark
of the cinemaplex,
as I search for any hope of a profile
under those strings of hair
he can never shake back enough times,
I can't decide
whether I want to kiss him,
full on the mouth,
or whomp him and his whole generation
of snotty ingrates
a good one upside their head.

That is, until he dies,
face down in the pool of my twenties,
stagnant with warming beer and the floating butts
of Kool King Menthols, floating pieces
of my busted-up heart,
dies from all the times
I drove home loaded, one eye shut,
crazy to party some more.

Then I take him as my brother.
Then I rise up in his name
and keep rolling on.