Isabella

Isabella

The pop quiz
whiz kid
had a Spanish name

for his imaginary
girlfriend. In
time-tested teen logic

a foreign name made it
believable. Verisimilitude
didn’t fly and neither did ten

cent names in a dollar store town.
Lunch box mentality
meant sons who took lunch money had

fists like frozen hams. The
nose bent slightly in the
mirror. He was too smart

to not see the left hook:
“bitches like you don’t have
girlfriends.”
Wrapped in a family quilt

the nose radiated pain like a
knobby antenna, picking up
the faint
chords of a flamenco.