School Girl

 

I had my first crush in eighth grade. Maybe that’s late.

In sixth grade I had a boy friend, Lanny, and we played chess,

talked a bit on the playground. I only knew it was a stillbirth

crush when Susan Mermelstein made a play for him, doing

what girls did then, batting eyes, smiling into her shoulder

when she talked to him at school. I cared, but only in theory.

In seventh grade, a tireless crew set explosions

removing rocks and debris, building underground

scaffolding, channels, tunnels, bridges.

I didn’t hear any of it. Results burst through the next year,

a good-sized avalanche of emotions, urges, needs.

I fell in love with a classmate, Stuart, who played trumpet

in the band to my timpani. I called him, twisting the blue coiled

phone cord round and round my body.

I found nothing to say.

My little brother was singing and I said,

That’s what goes on around here.

Stuart was quiet, maybe said oh.

What propelled me to like a boy

I couldn’t talk to?

At the time, I didn’t know to ask that question.