Amanda Tackles the Future

By Thomas Feeny

Amanda sits cross–legged
left to herself
nailed to the front porch
She pops her gum and watches
as the sun bleeds across
the horizon.

If she were a cat, right now
she’d be off to prowl
the neighborhood, slipping
on down to the riversmouth
where, padding through rushes,
she could feed her hunger,
black tail waving to the plinking
of guitars.

But no feline, Amanda waits alone,
held by the rapture of nightfall,
another mystery she loves and hates.
Slapping at mosquitoes, she
can’t help but envy her best friend
Rayette, who with one bag & a bus ticket
last week ran off to Chicago.

“The big city, that’s the place,”
says Amanda’s ma. “If a girl don’t
shimmy her way to stardom, — shoot,
she can always swing it in a hash house.”