“Harbor” by David Z. Morris

Outside acrobatic flips, the appeal of tween girls is pretty much lost on me.
Of course they live forever in brightness and polaroid,
but there is no drama there, in the whiteness and blondness and unironic tie-dyed t-shirts.
Being idealized, and idealizing, it is so unmistakably boring.
The house is a ruse. A trap.

And then there is her
Limber as a ballplayer
A ghost with long stockings and a mean slider
The knuckle bones dip dive revenge destruction
And the demon requests
Unbelievable cars with colors to conceal their vapidity.
Open-mouthed sandals devouring catwalk chunks
Explicit
GABOR.

A child thinks things are different than they really are
But what do we mean by different
We mean incomplete
Simple
Straightforward
We think that children
Without risk
Go forward
We hope we can create that safety for them
Before they find its limit.

Things harbor
Safety or the dream of it.
And what’s more terrifying than a dancing baby
Nowhere to go but down
Into nighted caves
where hungrier, harder babies live.

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