Spit Shine
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUPFrom Troubling Poems for Troubled Children
Andrew Hudgins
Spit Shine
My mama grabbed my chin and stared.
She licked her rough right thumb.
She moved it hugely toward my face
and homed in on a crumb.
I cringed and tried to hide my face.
She yanked me to my toes,
and her spit-icky thumb scrubbed me
until a bright-red rose
bloomed where Spaghetti-Os once clung
along my pimpled cheek.
I fought against her hook-like hands
till I felt my bladder leak.
She rubbed me red, scrubbed me raw
and buffed me till I bled,
before she stepped back half a step,
admired her work, and said,
"You look a little better now!"
Well, thank you, Dr. Jekyll.
"That scrape'll heal, and anyhow
I never liked that freckle."
Andrew Hudgins teaches at the Ohio State University. His most recent book of poems is Ecstatic in the Poison.
