Amanda Chiado
Winter 2025 | Poetry
Ode to a Dodgeball Baptism
You played scared until you got hit so hard
you froze and shattered into dozen thrifted teacups.
Everyone warmed their hands on your dumpster fire.
You’re a smoke show of crumpled whopper wrappers.
Everyone could smell the raunch of your teen spirit.
All the bullies dance a cha-cha around your charbroiled effigy.
With the pimpled holiness of half-cocked priests, they
pour effervescent orange Fanta on your comatose face.
Your crush, dressed like a rainbow sherbet Hi-Chew,
pounds on your chest like an orangutan. Gangly dummies
doused in soda pop is the new Love Island. Her kiss is hot
glue, enough to put Humpty back together again. You float
off changed toward the door of the gym like a sea swept lobster,
5,000 helium balloons tied to your sweet-sweaty armpits
Amanda Chiado is the author of Vitiligod: The Ascension of Michael Jackson (Dancing Girl Press). Her work has most recently appeared in RHINO, The Pinch Journal, The Offing and many others. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart & Best of the Net. She is the Director of Arts Education at the San Benito County Arts Council, is a California Poet in the Schools, and edits for Jersey Devil Press. www.amandachiado.com