Literal Latte

Second Prize, 2009 Literal Latte Poetry Award.

At twelve, I could only see the seventeen-year-old boy
as a gift. A fluke from God.  More real to me 

now than his face — his bicep in the twilight, his stack
of undelivered Evening Stars, my shoe 

stubbing at the shafts of grass that violated
the driveway bricks.  I have no memory of language — 

only of loitering, lingering far past curfew to circle
each other as leaf-cindered air turned gray, as 

the huge shadow of the hickory, cut from sudden
streetlight, swallowed us from view.

What words did I say that made him return, dusk
after dusk, throughout that smoky autumn?

My mother was lost in steam, stirring.  My father fell
asleep beside his Manhattan, the half-read mail.

I dawdled along the yard's perimeter, knowing longing
without knowing what I longed for.  The voice 

that rose in him was bass — my own voice,
vibrato.  I was reedy — a flute.  A straw.  Desire 

outstripped my body.   His bones were tall — head
lost in the hickory limbs.  He smelled of something

I knew.  Like nothing I knew.  He came to me
from the top of the street.  He lived nowhere

I'd ever been.  But every morning I split his window
with dangerous light.  I lodged like a splinter in his day.

There was nothing to see and no one saw it.  In fireplaces,
crumpled news crackled and lit; red embers breached 

the chimneys.  Something broken beat and beat the air  —
a shutter, unhinged — a warped door that wouldn't close.