--DEAR CHICAGO, I THINK ABOUT YOU ALL THE TIME

 

About a Boy

 

You can find him in the attic, rolling a sliver of split lip between his fingers like dislodged snot. 

You can find him in the basement, crouched between a toilet and sink, air vent blowing kisses like a soundless trumpet between his buttocks as he reads Gulliver’s Travels and forgets for a minute his split lip, the thunder of his parents’ slugfest the night prior, and all those before that.  

At lunchtime, you can find him back of the school library by a thin row labeled POETRY fondling a volume like an unfathomable first girlfriend, his encrusted split lip trickling a scarlet ellipsis across the page. 

You can find him at the school dance in hand-me-down socks, big toe out, him hidden in the shadows near gym bleachers flattened like an accordion where all the other wallflowers lean, though only he shivers and shakes, wearing a new split lip. 

You can find him in Vallarta, supine on a beach, newly married somehow, watching his bikinied bride lean across the toasted sand for a kiss as he says, I love you so much you have no idea. Thank you thank you for liking me back and Please bite down hard on the lower one to see if it still bleeds.