TWELFTH STREET

When I was twelve

a hurdler was my hero.

He was sixteen

had ripple abs

a brush cut vertical

without hair wax

eyes yellow and

indifferent as a cat’s.

His girl (bulging

striped tube tops)

was long on giggles and

lipstick before breakfast.

They were fixed stars

on the block, Polaris

around whom our

small moons revolved.

Now, decades on,

I see them still the week

his family packed to move

to Florida (for us

as far as Mars):

two twined forms beneath

a streetlamp, sliding already

into separate worlds.

Versions first published in Poetry Ink 2021: An Anthology (Moonstone Press, July 2021) and The Raven's Perch (Sept.14, 2021)