"Megan is Right," a poem by Peter Mladinic

Viv is cutting Megan’s hair
in the small room with the big mirror
and the counter all cramped
with shears razors curlers

Sally comes in, Viv’s next head
Sally, tall straight decent breasts
blonde gray medium length hair,
old enough to be Megan’s mom

Sally and Viv talk grandkids
grandkids’ football basketball
Viv says to Megan, You showed me
a picture of you at a b ball game

at a long table on the sideline
with a mic telling the score
Megan says No, that wasn’t me
Viv insists it was Megan

Megan wants Viv’s focus
on her hair she tells Viv,
I never showed you such a pic
and, so Sally can hear, besides

I don’t like b ball and football
I like baseball and boxing, but
the women don’t hear so aghast
are they a person couldn’t like

sports their grandchildren play
Megan wants to shout I’m
not from here, I’m from there
there the sports were baseball

boxing when I was growing up
I’m from there, I’m different
from you, she wants to tell them
she knows things such as one

night after a concert in Paris
one of the Delta Rhythm Boys
tried to stop a young man outside
the hall, sitting on the sidewalk

from playing Russian roulette
the Delta Rhythm Boy tried
to take gun he was fatally shot
but why bother, thinks Megan

maybe Megan has it all wrong
has the Delta Rhythm Boys
confused with the Brown Dots
but why bother after all it’s not

b ball and football and countless
pics of grandchildren, she’d
like to turn from the mirror
get up and cup of one of Sally’s

decent breasts to see to feel
if it is decent, but she senses
Sally wouldn’t want to get naked
with her or any woman like her