Member Poem

The ground outside is drinking rain slowly,  

and I’m thinking of being young. 

Chase and I were barefoot  

and shirtless, ignoring  

a hateful sky while we hacked golf clubs  

at grass that endured  

the hard work of growing. 

When I pulled back the iron  

and smashed his lips to his braces,  

I believed  

he and God were both crying  

because of me.  

I couldn’t tell the loose skin  

in his mouth from pieces of the apple  

we had pulled from a tree,  

bitten and spit out for its bitterness.  

After we took Chase home,  

my mother whipped me  

in the garage. We both cried 

because it seemed like too much  

to find space for on the rickety shelf  

hiding under the staircase— 

the lightning, the sound of metal against teeth,  

the memory of breaking a body.

Originally published in Issue #32 (Spring 2016) of Forklift, Ohio