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  • High School Dancerettes at Halftime
  • Teri Elam (bio)

High school dance girls sashay in formationOnto the football field. Old cataracts catchHold their hatchling bodies, lace & gartered,Shapely backs, necks erect, heads afro-bunned.

Their fishnets attached by garters to a beaded blackUnitard, lace and shine shimmying to eye rolls andHeavy hissing, “Why those girls so fast?” BlackTeenaged girls, labeled early, before they know

Who they are, before they label themselves. The menSay nothing in the air, but leer, grayed brows furrowed,Their glares creeping and twisting. When the whistleBlows, the girls’ lowercase l-shaped bodies dance

Natural, untethered without shame. Innocent, theseHigh school dance girls twist, swish, and twirlAcross the football field until the final whistle beepBeeps. Later on, incognito, one man on Facebook

Types his comments: “They’ll be on the poleSoon.” The girls, now hanging at their BFF’s house,In holey jeans and Vans doing each other’s hair,Listen to some silly boy sing about something silly,

Snapchatting or Instagram-giggling with friends.Halftime is over. [End Page 26]

Teri Elam

Teri Elam is a Cave Canem Fellow and vona graduate. She holds an mfa in creative writing from Stonecoast/usm and is the poetry editor for the Stonecoast Review. She lives in Atlanta.

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