“Latchkey Kids” by Bree Rolfe

Latchkey Kids

On the afternoons when my sister
was supposed to watch me
after school, the house would fill
with teenage boys. They’d take over
the yard, flipping and screaming
on my trampoline, making waves
in the pool so high the water sloshed
over the sides and soaked the ground.
They blasted the songs the Beastie Boys
have since apologized for as they snapped
bras and grabbed asses and took
the neighborhood girls for rides
on their dirt bikes without helmets.

My friend Shannon and I hid
in the basement playroom
with our Sylvanian Family dolls.
We arranged our families of squirrels
and rabbits and beavers
in their playhouse, posed in dinner scenes
with tiny food served on tiny plates.
But one day, the boys came
through the basement door
to get to the VCR in the family room.

From the other room, we could hear
laughing and sounds we couldn’t identify.
Moaning, shuffling, and then bodies
slapping together over and over as
the boys’ voices whooped and howled along.

One of them appeared in the doorway
and said, come in here.
We want to show you something.

My sister was outside making out
with her boyfriend who played
hockey and had feathered hair
whose little brother sat behind
me in our fourth-grade class.

At first, we froze and said nothing,
but they said, Don’t be babies,
just come and look. It’s cool.

And so we stood in the doorway
and looked when they pointed
at the screen — and I don’t remember
what I saw — maybe a violent
blur of bodies, faces twisted into groans.

They laughed as we looked,
wide-eyed, and then ran away.
Shannon fled back to her house
next door, so I went outside
to tell my sister that our mom
would be home soon.

As I walked away, I could hear
her boyfriend say, your sister
has a nice ass and then she laughed:
She’s only nine.

Thirty-five years later, I am standing
on my father’s lawn, waiting
with my niece for the ice cream man.
The neighbor waves from under
his giant flag across the street,
slapping in the wind. And I think it’s the same
sound as the porn he showed me.

bree rolfe

Bree A. Rolfe lives in Austin, TX, where she teaches writing and literature to the mostly reluctant, but always lovable, teenagers at James Bowie High School. She is originally from Boston, Massachusetts, where she worked as a music journalist for 10 years before she decided she wanted to dedicate her life to writing poetry and teaching. Her work has appeared in Saul Williams’s poetry anthology, Chorus: A Literary Mixtape, the Barefoot Muse Anthology, Forgetting Home: Poems About Alzheimer’s, the Redpaint Hill Anthology, Mother is a Verb, and 5AM Magazine. She holds an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Bennington College. Her first chapbook, Who's Going to Love the Dying Girl, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in September of 2021. http://breerolfe.com/

Headshot: Cynthia L. Miller

Photo Credit: Staff