Doors unhinged to expose smokers
give me a down view of girls crushed
in a stall in my high school bathroom.
“Are you a narc?” one grinds out. I close myself in.
My view is pure: girls and boys crush ribs and hips
for warmth in the bleachers. No quarter in such hungry games.
“Are you a narc?” grinds through my head. My date moves closer.
“What’s a narc?” I ask, sounding brittle, casual.
The warmth of his thigh, first quarter of the game.
Two hours more of his hand on my nape, his voice:
“A snitch, a tattletale.” One kiss. No sound. Not casual.
We run, shaking down the bleachers, around the corner.
Two hours ’til curfew. My goose skin. Fog from his voice.
Installations of desire in him, in me, cheers from the bleachers.
Our shakedown is improvised on a bench in a dark corner.
Hollowed out, I clean up in the bathroom. He is waiting.
We reinstall on the edge of the bleachers,
my arm in one sleeve of his coat, his in the other.
All Hallow’s Eve. I am clean, decisive, empty of waiting.
Celebrities, not saints, we will be tomorrow.
My arm in one sleeve reaches over to his, the other.
We touch along the sides of our bodies, follow the game.
Saints we will be tomorrow and every day, clean, significant.
Once we admit this wholeness, we rush home.
Where he touched my side is flushed the next day
as I walk the halls. He stands with friends—narcs all—
who demand the whole of his secrets. No rush.
His mouth unhinges in a smile at me. They won’t smoke us out.
Published by West Side Books online, Denver, Colorado, 2005
©Beth Partin. All rights reserved.
