Katie Kemple

Once I Played Persephone in Middle School

Hades appeared blond and tan, a lifeguard in red swim                trunks
and I, a pale thirteen-year-old following him with my          best friend
to a new beach every day by bike, on vacation                 in new bikinis,
mine a pink so light I looked naked. We went to           where he waited
tables at Denny's and ordered Cokes. He tied        our cherries in knots
with his tongue. And I can't even recall                 how I ended up alone
with him at night, against the blue       vinyl siding of my friend's rental
house, his hand up my blouse,           assuring me it's not the size of the
wave but the motion of the           ocean that counts, his hand down my
shorts, asking if I knew                   what he was looking for, whispering:
we won't have sex           tonight. His soft lips, his smooth body against
me, what if he'd         said something else? The sweet grass at my back,
the sandy earth,      it could have all broken beneath me in that moment.

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Katie Kemple (she/her) is a poet, parent and media consultant based in San Diego, CA. Her poems appear in current, or upcoming, issues of Atlanta Review, Longleaf Review, Lullwater Review, Lunch Ticket's Amuse-Bouche, Matter and The West Review.