Sometimes it felt like

I was running out of time.

Like cloth,

I kept wasting it,

cutting into strips

so thin I couldn’t use them

for anything but the cheapest

of nooses.

and it is an unattainable love that asks the boy there it is finger knitting like my sister at recess and whistling tunes and swing swing that float through empty tidy rooms growing up awfully so adventurous straight backed bent by the proper hands of piety gay in the face drawn in the lettered gilt law heartless caroling to show tunes of cold air it is spinning spinning the swing-set until dusk can you not run home too soon do not go rushing into the night nude and sprinting skin pale flush those reckless double breasted coats twirl you and lift you and plant acorns in the garden with you but do not laugh beware those questions that lay you flat had you sailing and blowing away with them those feelings make you palpate with your own wary in the dark for barbarous bargains and then offer the world away you were young you and careless and wearing fur like fabrics hiding under the stage playing kissing games and with boys even younger than your years when the too much like you voice chasing you throwing books and rushing and beating the door with flushed fists and rushing headlong until your back bent you forward