What if
I had kept that secret for you,
met you on slim, stone streets,
clutched hands, trusted your
unsettled eyes.
My loyalty lay elsewhere,
on jagged waves,
your brother’s thick hands
dispatching sand and
that shrewd, cruel boy, who
laid ashes so quick between us,
was not beautiful enough to
drown me first.
Seminal, ancient night:
me in flowered, synthetic fibers,
you clad in pubescent
confidence, in the shadows,
you did push-ups and gave me
an equivocal compliment.
Then I left you both behind.
Now lines bracket my eyes and
my body, in decline since 6th grade,
is ever more offensive;
You two never would have
loved it then,
never honored me like he does now:
clearly, in the stunning sunlight,
on water slides, in laden boats,
with his big hands and
his inestimable heart.
