Last summer of innocence
Rent from DeepDyve- Last summer of innocence
there was Noella who knew I was sweetbut cared enough to bother with me
that summer when nobody diedexcept for boys from other schools
but not us, for which our motherslifted his holy name & even let us skip
some Sundays to go to the parkor be where we had no business being
talking to girls who had no interestin us, who flocked to their new hips
dumb birds that we were, nectar high& singing all around them, preening
waves all day, white beater & our bestbasketball shorts, the flyest shoes
our mamas could buy hot, line-up freshfrom someone’s porch, someone’s uncle
cutting heads round the corner cuttingeyes at the mothers of girls I pretended [End Page 35]
to praise. I showed off for girlsbut stared at my stupid, boney crew.
I knew the word for what I wasbut couldn’t think it. I played football
& believed that meant something.when Noella n ’nem didn’t come out
& instead we turned our attentionto our wild legs, narrow arms & pig skin
I spent all day in my brothers’ arms& wanted that to be forever—
boy after boy after boy after boypulling me down into the dirt. [End Page 36]
Danez Smith is the author of “[insert] boy” (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and “Don’t Call Us Dead” (Graywolf Press, 2017). He is a 2014 Ruth Lilly Fellow and a mfa candidate at the University of Michigan.
