First
Playboy
Stowed between coffin lid
mattress and frame
as if tucked in a church pew
I waited long past the hyphen of light
diminished in a whispered
horizontal slant
beneath the door of
my parents’ bedroom down the hall
the room where I was conceived
grade school autumn, sixth grade
counting the follicles of adolescent
fur sprouting like a dried holiday
wreath around the nest of my anatomy
stationary white of my
torso
body a stiff peg on a
hat rack
that has never been used
Confirmation bible on
chin of nightstand
prayers supplicated
offered two hours earlier
on caps of knees
How I remember kissing the minty lips
of Renae Howard in the rain
in Westlake parking lot
freshman year,
her body, taller than mine
walking as if on stilts,
being unable to refrain
from trying to enter her shy
smile like a voyeuristic
keyhole
watching as her eyes hush close
an automatic garage
door
not being to understand how wet
he mouth felt inside
wondering what would happen
if I got her alone on the leather chariot
on her living room couch
long past the rectangular tongue
of the rented VHS tape had protruded
and self-ejected at us in envious scowl
the blizzard scratch and static
allegro accompanying us
imagining what she would look like
with a bunny tail and ears
wondering if the sun porch
could pass for a grotto
groping the glossy bulletin
\scrolled kaleidoscope
The center flapping out
in a trinity of frames
guts a stain glass
drape
bannered over an athletic stadium
heralding a pennant
the windows of author profiles
blurred comics,
dimensions, busts sizes
fetishes, Hef with his pipe
trying to find the Easter rabbit on
the front cover as if with a monocle
I groped my flesh
a relay baton,
a diploma from a
commencement
ceremony that somehow would never arrive.
