Member Poem

The grey placemat on the table had the same texture
As the rubbery asphalt track around the standalone soccer field he would sneak to as a middle schooler.

When he sat on it as a ruddy boy,
Wearing his brother's old Bermuda shorts,
His thighs would get textured also
After a few minutes.

It took some time
For the elasticity in his skin to bring the shape back
To normal.

Even in those Bermuda shorts he was a lightning bolt,
Never knowing if the rhythm was his feet or his heart when it was really both.
Never breaking stride, eyes steeled on the horizon he purposefully bent
Around that ellipse,
A white-striped snake eating its own tail.

The purple sunbeams of shadowed dusk mellowed from his ball of waning fire,
That sun down upon the odd clad little brother who stole away after supper to soar.
His sun.

Now, he sat. Older, but we must all get older.
He pushed his weight to his forearms on the grey placemat
So that he might feel the texture,
The indentions of his youth,
And wondering how much longer he had to wait.