poem: gods at small tables

she walked past him in a red coat. he was sitting in the hazing

that comes in the dawn. his back to the window and the world

and his soul in his typing fingers, the innocence in him

always stark and fresh. his leg stretched out just so, his

headphones taped over his ears, and his apparent

studied nonchalance. he is dry in the rainstorms; he is burdened

with caring. she sees in him something of the doe that runs

at the first thunder, that runs from her but still hangs politely

in his eyes and the space between his footsteps, when he

walks from universe to universe across

the carpets. he is also a storm, and a good one,

he is leaning forward to become lightning in some other

girl’s eyes.

 

he is sitting at a round small table and studying, already

knighted in my head as I walk past. when I look over once

he looks up too

but we are spared eye-sex because

I flick my eyes down and away, guilty and wrapped up in

moving-on, in growing up.

 

the boys I love do not know

that they are already immortal