First Boyfriend

for BB

We knew which hills to climb, which waves to take us,

which sands to bask in, which cars to steal,

which church box to jimmy

to buy hot pastrami on rye, mustard licked off each other’s lips,

fierce hunger slaked—

the longing that settled like dust on our adolescence, gone.

You were trouble. Pure trouble.

And sometimes, before it ended, all you wanted

was a drunken brawl.

What can I say? I’d found my spirit animal, invisible

friend who’d left me a few years earlier—lost

imagination that kept me quiet when Sister locked me

in the chicken coop, bird-talking the bantams,

onyx eyes pressed on mine

as we clucked our shared delight in grain and egg.

Your sweet-boy name was the same as bullet,

small planet, shining bead—

Dear BB, you shattered my loneliness, returned me to Child.

Do you remember when we escaped on ponies

in the unending light,

and never went home?

first published in Alaska Quarterly