Ode to Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Beach blonde babe but always with a dagger in her hand.

Red leather pants,

And the realization that maybe it’s okay to love you like That.

Ten years old,

Sitting straight backed on my mother’s bed frame we watched you like Saint Buffy.

Oh, Sancta Maria, show us how to land a punch like you,

to win a fight like you,

walk boldfaced and brilliant through the backlit alley’s like you.

So whenever the maintenance men try to watch me through my window,

and whistle and hoot when I walk out the back door,

I may look to your face, poster pinned on my wall in place of a stained glass window.

Pretty face but calloused in its glory.

I kneel on my bedframe and hope I look like you.

Holding out for a different kind of salvation,

I will memorize the curves of your hands like a prayer.