Blue Angel
My brother chose Bubba Shot the Jukebox for God knows why. He bought some snakeskin boots. This was our brief Summer of Country, and I did it my way: more secretive, no tight jeans, no cowboy hat – I hadn't yet rung puberty's bell. I still crept through starless vaults rat-like, even as we learned to line-dance, both hands hooked on bighorn buckles – Angel, it was then I chose you. That night the newly buxom white-frilled girls bootscooted the hardwood, invisible to me. A lonely tune began to conjure you from another, darker, world. Blue Angel, he crooned, and my rat-eyes gleamed, and my brother, dimly, knew.