I’m lying on my back, tracing two lines of fuzzy chalk
across the sky and then I see them, high up,
like grains of rice, Fighters, I’m thinking,
and then I’m back in high school, squatting
next to Kevin Adley in the Boys Room
and he’s going on and on about
he’s going to be a pilot, Fly Sabres,
while I’m grunting, Sure Sure, back through the stall,
but the next thing I know he’s over Korea
shooting down MIGs.
Kevin
was like that: no wasted motion . But it didn’t
bother the girls. They were always beautiful, smart,
the kind who’d talk to you after English because
they felt sorry for you but not enough to go out.
Like Valerie Kueling. I knew she and Kevin
were getting it on, I mean, Jesus, she couldn’t
stop talking about it but Kevin
always told me, Uh, unh, no way,
but he wasn’t keeping it quiet for Valerie’s sake,
he just couldn’t resist drawing that line
between you and him
whenever he could.
Like
at Valerie’s second wedding,
we’re all in the kitchen and she’s going on
about high school, how great it was,
and he leans over, tells me
the two of them were doing ninety one night
when all of a sudden she reaches over and unzips him and
straddles him, all in one motion,
Continued