11/12/2021

you lived over the tracks, beyond the industry smog

not in a bad way, just the nature of offering directions

from where I lived and understood the streets

we were stereotypically different, you with sports, me with art

barely a mutual friend between us you liked to wrestle,

much unlike the sport, and I did too

I don’t even recall how we discovered this pastime

I vividly remember, however, the time your mom caught us,

home from work early, recalling she felt “faint”

not realizing she actually might, asking what we were doing

under the couch blanket, together, hushed in a state of boyhood panic

erect in our hearts and pants, beginning to sweat for a new reason