TO A MAN IN SALT LAKE CITY

TO A MAN IN SALT LAKE CITY

1

I don't remember your face.

You might have worn a beard.

You were short, my height;

I was tall for 11.

At K-mart, en route to California

I was in the sports section

looking at the snorkeling masks

when you bumped into me raised up

your knee to rub my inner thigh.

Excuse me, I fumbled

thinking it must've been

some kind of accident but your eyes

locked on mine

so I had to make an abrupt break

to move on.

I smelled your cologne.

I now know your face was around

every corner in that K-mart

pushing itself into

later dreams in which your eyes

stared out cold, needy

from the label on every item

asking me for something I didn't

know I had.

2

The toy section had a whole aisle of trains.

On the speaker, the Beatles sang

I wanna hold your hand,

a line I'd read on a note from Barb

a round-faced girl in my 5th grade class:

I want to hold your hand at recess today.

Check One:

Yes

or No

.

You strolled up behind me

filled the aisle with your cologne.

I felt a phantom pressure

where your knee had touched my thigh.

My neck flushed hot.

You were singing along

with the song

mumbling the words, pretending to look

at the trains

moving closer

bending toward the tracks.

I anticipated your hand on my back.

Your voice cleared like gravel grinding

into sudden motion

from under the spinning wheels of our camper

a smooth liquid croon, threatening

to pull me under into some

dark breathless world the way I'd imagined the

undertow my mother warned me about. I wanna

suck your cock, you sang.

I ran without looking.

3

I didn't tell my dad

even while watching you

from behind his broad back

as you moved through the check-out line

your eyes roving side to side

now empty of everything calm.

You must've known I was too scared to tell;

you were just in line

minding your own business buying a

funnel.

I thought about other boys imagined

scenes with you

I tried to push out with the palms of my hands

against my closed lids

the K-mart, the city, you and your funnel

back in the dust somewhere as I lay curled on

my bed above the cab.

How could I tell the words

you'd whispered to me?

What did they mean about me?

I'd held Barb's hand at recess felt her wet

palm, knew that I was a man, felt it.

What was I supposed to feel about what you'd said?

A real man would've beat the crap out of him

I thought, or at least told so

someone else could.

4

In California we headed

straight for the beach.

Mom sunned on one of the beach-chairs.

Dad had my little brother high on his shoulders

laughing, bouncing up and down with the

rhythm of the tide.

But I found the water so crowded

with the eyes of strangers

I became conscious

of my naked skin

my adolescent shape filling a boy's swimsuit.

We spent days at the beach

but the sun seemed hardly warm enough.