Teen Wolf

There was a prom

for one high school basketball star,

where chicks cinched in ruffled hot pink miniskirts

split the crowd,

jabbing Senior boyfriends with dulling wrist corsages

for a chance to watch the beast dance. Other young lads,

why couldn’t you think of something original? After all,

you merely had a dick in your pants.

 

Tell them

gym doors don’t crash open for a teen star

who would refuse to be the wolf, much less you.

The doors creak and the record skips,

a single balloon pops and you will almost hear punch being sipped,

because the world is not awash in Boofs.

 

Wolf wolf wolf the other girls chanted

while the boys, had they not been paid movie extras,

would consider wandering off.

 

But what a show they would’ve missed.

 

Well before Scott bore his mandibles—

John Hancocking his tormenter’s black blazer

with werewolf claws and heaving ogreish intangibles,

ruining the whole thing—

he would dance. He would disco,

no,

he would bop that graduating hormonal estuary into a choreographed frenzy,

even if they were only students played by actors

who for a moment

forgot they had bills.

 

…and that’s what it felt like the first time

I passed a fake I.D. for a keg of beer.