Riffing on Edward Hirsch's "The Skokie Theater"

"Twelve years old and lovesick"

Twelve years old and lovesick, with the Dubble
Bubble and pitstains bouncing in an airless
van decal'd with GRAY HILL CHURCH OF GOD,
she and I watch the tiny CRT in the console,
a blue screen from an overtracked tape.
She smiles without lipstick
when I look out the window
at the pine thickets pushing,
rushing past. The Passion--
that Gibson postmortem--
begins in a half hour and Pastor Rick
has rented the whole theater where
we lift a gum-flecked armrest
and nobody sees. The bloody man on the
gray veil, whose first death brought
forth the adolescent tears when I heard the story
from a redheaded cousin in the front room
on creaky pine floors, the bloody
man moans in Aramaic. She had told
the story like she wasn't sure,
and had made it worse. Now,
between Caviezel's tortured
spittle and the subtitles--
who the fuck wants to read a movie?--
she and I, arms locked and popcorn,
the redfaced youth minister behind,
transfix.