boyhood
BY MIYAH POWE
he loves to color the world a sugar-poem
draws an atlas with the reds of himself
attracted to his own whistle womb
bursting and slewing without
boyhood hangs tight on him
wet, iced blue to his ribs storming with wind
this is how he comes to define beautiful:
weeping willows,circles, the number twelve, duct tape, the color pink, clean school uniforms,
toothbrush bristles, gas smells at the wawa, yellowthroats, silly putty, recycling bins, both
of the t’s in poinsettia, airports, rug burns, mario kart, pretending to drown in the
community pool, bike tires, anything that begins with the letter q, truffle beds, trampolines,
lollipop rings, his brother’s pet lizard bobo, triple-tiered german chocolate cake, christmas
carols, blackberries, now that’s what I call music! karaoke sets, dahlia beds,
one he saw like gold pushing up from the sun soil
it is growing for him
picks it up by the roots, delicate
this is all he needs
to hold beautiful in between his fingers, like a cave
and have it carry him home
to his parents
what he knows:
they do not want to know their flowering boy
or how he loves beauty into every inhale
his mother, a torn beak
time stretches her across skin until it plucks
braille tongue and bleak lips
his father, a deep claw
age rips across his face until it sinks down
brillo clutch and grating fingers
both, arbitrators of some kind of fact, an absolute knowing
he does not want their cauterized, billowed, braking
both, defenders of a seedless earth that will not break open for him
he has no interest in squawking necks at war with clicking tongues
the truth:
his blooming is not in red hands nor tiny graves
he lowers his head at stones, but doesn’t know why
every night he will dry his smoky eyes
hear the trembling of an anthropocene
and tuck his dahlia beneath his head
wakes up beside the questions
breathing gently into those things: beautiful, good, agreeable
this is how he comes to define big:
crapshoots thrown against cracks
big white everythings with no beginning or end
blue, black, green, brown
mighty cavities of a golden god
one morning brought him a new brink
his dahlia has dried, crumbled under his pillow
when he picks it up he sees that it has turned into
sulfur biting back down into its own veins he cries
its pistol-whip petals are withered down
this is how he will come to define words empty like beautiful:
those things that refuse to stay gold and stain
and fragment underneath his
fingernails
