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Tiburón
once, as a child, my parents & a credit card bought a pool table
& i found myself in the backyard with clumsy hands & growing breasts—
i claimed corner pocket until i could master sinking an eight ball
& by fifteen the neighborhood kids knew of the mexican girl
named Tiburón— the shark who’d bite at the sound of a pool stick
chalked into strategy in exchange for walmart gift cards.
& i recall a time when a boy who thought himself a man
challenged me to a game of strip pool.
i thanked the sky for the cold desert night, for cloaking my body
with layers. i emptied the table of its striped billiards &
the boy who thought himself a man stripped down to a full moon,
cupped his manhood & i walked away
with his shit-talk in my pocket. years later, in college, my roommate
asked me to accompany her to the local pub.
the bar sticky in old beer & jukebox, we took our seat on broken stools,
rickety when our legs crossed themselves for good balance.
the room full of tall men hovered over the pool table, their hands
choking the necks of IPA’s. i stacked a tower of quarters on the table.
stared down a white man covered in mermaid tattoos
trapped in the ocean of his arm.
i’ll play for 5 bucks & a few smokes. i break the table & his jaw
snaps back at the reckless dance. four beers later i sweep
a twenty dollar bill & american spirits. i walked into the alley,
smoked my winnings & exchanged my dollar bills for a california burrito.
my mouth smothered in salsa verde. i laughed, laughed at the history
of men who dare doubt the feral animal that blazes in this blood.
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Karla Cordero is a Chicana poet, educator, and a 2021 California Arts Council Established Artist Fellow. Her poetry collection, How To Pull Apart The Earth, is a San Diego Book Award winner and finalist for the International Latino Book Awards. Karla’s work has appeared on NPR, Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Split This Rock, The Oprah Magazine, PANK, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4 LatiNext Anthology, among other publications. She is the Executive Director for the non-profit art organization Glassless Minds and Professor at MiraCosta College and San Diego City College. Follow her @karlaflaka13 on Instagram or visit her website.
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Charles Edouard Boutibonne, Ladies Playing Billiards, 1869