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Steven

We were so naïve,
made of chalk drawings of suns and cubes in the drive,
paisley jumpers or jeans with holes and mud under fingernails.

To think, a stick was just a stick and not a sword
or a metaphor between us. And our multiplying freckles
were only signs of age, not beauty or relics of kisses
left by angels and mothers and you.

We left the only magic in the rows of planted pines
miles between our houses, not the circles of mushrooms
or the tree-rain that lingered every day after four.

What we were, we never outgrew like clay-caked shoes
or haircuts with bangs or being able to talk to each other
without so much hidden meaning. Because I see
the boy you were in the sunspots on your shoulders
or the baby crow’s feet around your eyes or the way
we stand together waiting for the bus in the morning rain,
and I know you’re thinking:  we were so naïve.



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