Two Poems

What Love Is

Nah nah nah nah nah
I don't know how to spell that out
like a little kid with his hands behind his ears and his tongue out
I’ve got you
tickled and thinking
backing you into the corner of the playground
where all the teenagers smoke their cigarettes during gym class
so the teacher’s can’t see them
or at least they used to
before gym class was cancelled altogether and sitting became learning
then there’s you
and I tagged you but you just stand there
looking at a dead bird on the ground
he must have flown into the window
you tell me
eyes wide open, jaw slightly cracked
there’s nothing to bury him with
you say, arms at your side,
belly lose and charging out of your OshKosh overall jeans
you give me your lunch money
$2.50 to keep the other boys away
to keep them from noticing your blushed face
I charge away from you
keeping my secret crumbled in two one dollar bills
dropping the change as I walk.



What Love Is

We could have been on a dance floor together,
those ones that light up from below
in Tennessee we would have
drank whiskey and talked about how long the state was.
We would have played pool in a darkly
lit corner, with random sweaty stink and smoke.
We could have been in the back of your Chevrolet
if it wasn’t a big truck with only
two front seats and the smell of wet dog.
No Jesus air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror.
Then there was the coffee shop
you turned into a pancake house
at three in the morning.
And I think: this is it.
This is when we ride off into the sunset
your mullet catching the wind
my hands clinging tightly to your chest
summer sweat underneath our helmets.
Do we even need helmets where we are going?
But you just pay the waitress after shoveling down
three pancakes with strawberry syrup
and I never get to see how you bend a girl over.
I bet you ask if she likes it rough.
Do you even take her shirt off?
Let her nipples hang underneath you?
We could have been a post-prom fantasy,
the kinds that don’t require flowers or a fancy limo
or a tissue to clean things up.