As homegrown as the marching band
they line up in front of
these heartland beauties—Czech,
Mexican, Norwegian—whose
great-grandparents indentured
themselves for a buckboard
wagon and ten acres, sodbreakers
flinching at the roots of
the prairie grass snapping like
gunshots, shake their wounded
bouquets of crepe paper before
the trumpets and snare drums.
And they kick, knee high, waist
high, small-town princesses
in blood-red cancans, and
obsidian black panties, like the bits of
flint used to carve out the
hearts of Aztec sacrificial victims,
under the Wildcat Banner they
march harder, white booted,
showing off their legs to the
tight upper thigh, kicking into the
klieg lights, just as those in
the stands rise and their voices ignite,
Fight fight…for all of this
the prairie forgets the hurt of being
broken, the passenger pigeons and
Sac Indians forgive their
own extinction, the Swede
meatpackers are gladdened by the
insanity brought on by slitting
the bellies of endless cows for
five cents an hour…fight you
Wildcats, we will cheer for you.
And they try to kick high as
their heads feeling almost divine
for haven’t these cars come to
honk in their honor, and aren’t
they like Virgins of the Sun
blessing the field, their forebears
not cancan chanteuses or belly
dancers, but the Inca mountain
girls given by their fathers to
become goddesses, dressed in rich weaves
and buried alive, the corn tossed
into each new-made fire.
Someday the girl on the end will
confess her kicks aren’t even
pale imitations of Moulin Rouge,
only a yearning to be pure
winged, a feathery thing of leg
and pivot, all pizzicati and split,
acrobatic prowess wedded to
audacious rhythms, the beautiful best,
but knowing in her bones she’s no
lacy knickers to be slicked
onto pages of Victoria Secrets,
no Madame Pompadour
with her box paper covering the
hole in her sole, the polish
running off her boots like top
cream, and her mother does not
come to watch but throws up
chore-hardened hands at this
flaunting that will lead only to
the backseat of a parked car and
the football player placing her
daughter’s hand on his groin, and
then letting him enter the wild
beast of her cunt, and destiny
is not to be slain, but to marry
a name like Delwin, Arlen, Verlet.
