Adam Grabowski

Juvenilia

She is blonde and she is young and you are young
and pushed back against a tree and she has a way 

of bringing you into her mouth with an easy hunger
you can no longer feel though your chest still swells 

occasionally at the thought of it. Try explaining yourself
and it always ends up sounding lewd. Eyes roll.

Her eyes would roll, too, if she ever hears of this
but she will never hear of this. 

You had a sun-spotted photograph, once,
from that day—her red vest, her wet braid, 

an entire autumn collecting at her back,
but that’s lost too now, isn’t it, as you make love 

to the wild air, sour sometimes, sometimes radiant,
the bark still wet and cold against your back. 

No youth to you now, though there is October,
and an even swell of wind; perfume of leaf rot, 

the sounds of the trees swaying in your ears.
Breathing out, breathing in.

Back to Issue XIII…