I see him splash in the pool
of his childhood, struggling not to sink,
a pair of floaters on his skinny
arms–– on vacation with his mother,
I see his thick glasses, watch
how he devours a book
in bed, while outside the sun shines &
the other children play in the yard––
I can picture him locked in
his room, away from the wrath
of his young stepmother–– or at school,
sucking in his belly in a futile
attempt to tie his shoes––
I see him reeling in the kitchen
as, somewhere, a plane taxis
to the runway, moments from taking
off with his childhood– I see him
tremble by the river, learning
precociously, in the middle of a chilly night,
a new gymnastics from another
body–– I find him again, sitting on wet
grass in the dull haze of drugs, drunk
& chain-smoking, chattering incessantly
with a lone friend–– I catch him
tormented by sex, alone before
love & its atavism, lucid in
the naïveté he doesn’t know he has–
I watch how his muscles open, how
his height flowers upward– how, while
he grows shadowed with the desire
of other people, he is burned, as by a silent ray,
by his own– in college, I see
him with his hand raised, ready
with an inconvenient question–
I watch him transform soon after
into a serial boyfriend, the most likely
husband– I find him, eyes open,
in the conjugal night, gazing at the splinters
of light that pass through the half-closed
blinds and float across the ceiling–
I see him suspended in the air
in his assigned seat, unable
to sleep, sick to his stomach
before the decision he will make, a plastic
cup in hand– I discover him
alone again, lost in the music,
teeth coated with cement, trying
to learn how to live from flash
to singular blinding flash–
I observe how he floats amid
fragility, gently, on his back– I watch him
shut in himself, peeking over
the edge of his own youth.
