My Sister Wears Her Bikini to My Dad’s Car Dealership
Tina Blade
All of 17, my sister struts into the dealership
wearing her orange-plaid bikini
like armor. Arms akimbo, she’s tip-to-toe
swagger. Long tanned legs, intentional
turn and glimmer, shiver of hips and thighs.
Her hunger and calculation as basic and brazen
as her bleached-blonde hair, her shoulders
slim and fragile as a fawn’s.
The salesmen and mechanics who’ve known her
all her life greet her kindly, would give her
a shirt or a jacket, but don’t.
They would step in between her
and our father, who stands frozen in the broken
light of the showroom floor. His pale hands
have let go of whatever it was they were holding
with such certainty just moments ago. She lifts
her chin, squints at him, cigarette dangling.
Her gesturing arms are lovely as preening swans.
The swinging glass door to the street
would open so easily with just a push,
but everyone can see, there is no
safe way out of here.
Tina Blade lives in Duvall, WA, east of Seattle in the Snoqualmie River Valley. She received her MFA from University of Oregon. Her work has appeared in The Moth, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Calyx, Mid-American Review, Menacing Hedge and others. She is currently working on her chapbook, Broken Blue Egg.