Anne Champion

Biology
 
The day that Jacob was nominated homecoming queen,
I was partnered with a jock to dissect pig’s lungs.
 
It was our first lesson in sterility—our teacher,
in threatening seriousness, instructed us how to clean, cut,
 
and be cautious. But in our goggles and lab coats,
all anyone wanted to talk about was fat Jacob
 
with his lisp: will he accept the nomination?
Can we get that fag to finally wear a dress?
 
Jacob was not in class that week, but Wendy was―
stoically handing her partner all the tools necessary
 
and looking at no one, as my partner told me
that she’d taken two cocks at once and would do it again.
 
Wendy was my best friend. Ex-best friend. One of those
cocks had been my boyfriend’s, so the jock felt the need
 
to give me the details: She said she had to fuck him
because you wouldn’t. Somebody had to, ya know?
 
So, who’s going to be your best friend now? I said nothing
as he sliced the lung down the middle, stuck a straw in,
 
and blew it up so large it looked ready to burst.
His maniacal ease sent me running for the bathroom stall.
 
A week later, Wendy would give him a blow job under the bleachers
during homecoming, where Jacob was to be crowned
 
but didn’t show. In the bathroom, I sought sanctuary
underneath scrawled FAGS, FUCKED SLUTS, and 4EVERS.
 
 
 
 
Anne Champion has a BA in Creative Writing and Behavioral Psychology from Western Michigan University and received her MFA in Poetry at Emerson College. She has work previously published in The Minnetonka Review, Pank Magazine, The Aurorean, The Comstock Review, Poetry Quarterly, Line Zero and elsewhere. She was also a 2009 recipient of The Academy of American Poets Prize at Emerson College. She teaches Freshman Composition at Emerson College, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, and Pine Manor College in Boston, MA and works as a poetry reader for Ploughshares literary journal.
 
 
 
 
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