juliette givhan
One time at a Dennys in Las Vegas
a man stole my sister’s purse,
snatched it from the booth beside her,
and ran.
They ran after him—
one a princess,
cotton candy hair & colored contacts,
the other an asthmatic Pitbull
in a snapback—
& beat the absolute shit out of the dude.
When they caught up to him
one fell, scraping grit into her knees,
while the other acted like she came
straight out a World Star video—
fists falling into him
even as the car pulled away
& the purse rained down items
like confetti.
When I found out I asked them
the same question
our mom & the cops had:
Why didn’t you just let go?
They were angry. Affronted.
Why would we?
That’s the main difference, I think,
between the two gorgons
who are immortal
& the one who isn’t:
the one who is choked
by her vast possibility,
might never know how to seize it.
***
Juliette Givhan is a Black poet who writes about myths and memes. Her work appears in ANMLY Magazine, Change Seven Magazine, Two Hawks Quarterly, with forthcoming poems in Pidgeonholes Magazine and baest Journal.