When I was a Boy

 

Back when I was the boy of the family

I used to jiggle step in my father’s shadow all Saturday.

At the barbershop there were Hulk comics

and pictures of ladies in their nighties

and I learned how to say JEEEEEEESUS Christ

and not make it sound like a prayer, either.

We’d go to the bar to sit in cool darkness

and drink 7-Up right out of the bottle.

I learned jokes and shaking hands with the guys.

Or we’d go fishing – catching pumpkin seeds or clumps of grass.

I had to be quiet then, but it was serious quiet and easy,

not like mom’s nap quiet when I always needed stuff.

And we’d sit together against a tree.

Blue eyes and brown eyes didn’t make us different then

like breasts did later.

Oh, we were a club, just us two.

At night he washed my little hands in his big ones

and dried them hard,

even between my fingers.