PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

My worst experience of flu before adulthood

happened in early March of my sophomore year---

which was, itself, my worst year in high school,

and one of the worst in my twelve compulsory

because I was just constituted differently

than the societal strictures of high school

allowed, or accepted, or even tolerated.  The

fever began on a weekend, Saturday night,

and ruined my viewing enjoyment of the film.

"Killdozer," and by next morning, Sunday, I was

severely afflicted and not responsive to aspirin.

Monday morning at the doctors---a shot, a prescription;

I was forbidden to return to school until Friday.

My mother had arranged the living room's couch

with blankets, and the pillow from my bedroom,

so that I could watch the large color television.  The

relief of three more days away from the mockery---

which happened almost daily, and in several classes---

made the flu symptoms almost worthwhile to endure.

Then, believing myself to be slightly delirious,

I began to imagine you, Jay, as if you were present to

keep me company.  I had been "crushing" on you

(I would have said, then, "enamored of you," as

I was, then, always paging through my thesaurus)

since the previous quarter, first period "Conditioning," the

only physical education class I had to take that year:  when

shoeless and shirtless, you worked out with the weight machines---

clad only in very short red shorts and over-the-knee white socks

(with green seams across the toes---I did not fail to notice that).

Afterward, in the locker room; clad in your jeans---faded

sky-blue---with socks either teal or turquoise, you always

seemed reluctant to put a shirt back on and then, avoided

until last, that pair of lace up desert boots; always the last.  The

one time you spoke to me, at the weight machines,

saying, "You're Jerru, right?" and with a kindness that a

nerd like me should not have expected from an

athletic star, lettered in football, wrestling, and track.

Weather. during "flu week," was overcast, chilly, and inclement,

with predictions of sleet or snow for the evening.  Then

you arrived (yes, it was my fantasy was underway) at my door

clad in your customary  jeans and socks,

shoeless and shirtless as I knew you preferred to be.

I was glad that my mother was quite oblivious to my

revery about you, as she would not have at all approved of

you, or would have told you that you could have found a

better friend than me---she always made remarks like that.

You said, "I never thought of myself as beautiful

"until I saw the expression on your face when you gazed on me.

"I am surely not accumstomed to speaking like this, or to

"disclose such feelings in actual words---but this is

"your poem, about your fantasy, which you will be writing this

"forty-six years later---and to be part of it is an

"unexpected privilege.  I am not at all uncomfortable---

"your affection covers me like those warm blankets cover you.

"I want to bring satisfactions, repeated satisfactions, to

"all of your desires you have launched around me.  Your

"eyes are already all over me, and what would it be like to

"feel your lips and tongue and hands all over me as well?" 

Oh Musa Puerilis, you who

present as a beautiful and compassionate boy,

I thank you that, in this recollection, he---

Jay---has entered, across decades, my poetry, to

to represent my adolescent, and (in those days) forbidden, erotic joy:

Stellaring, Musa Puerilis . . .

Here, too,  I declare to each and every hater:

because of the likes of your UnKind,

I have said all this not sooner but later---

unfairly ashamed of how my life, at that time, was constrained. 

Jay---you said, "I never thought of socks as sexy before,

"but in the weight room, the locker room, and the library,

"your gaze always dropped to my feet after I had dropped my shoes.

"I delighted to flaunt my socks in front of you,

"because I knew that this simple gesture pleased you very much.

"I had not been accustomed to this kind of feeling, and it

"seemed so much fun---provocative, but very subtle, and

"detectable only to those who understood that sort of desire."

Then when the conversation reached a pause,

you leaned over to kiss me---slowly, and with your mouth

open, very wet, and your tongue deliciously dancing upon mine.

After that, you took my hands in yours and guided them to

your bare torso, to touch you---righ there, and right there;

please, right there, again.  Finally, with just a bit of

logistical effort (and glad the couch was roomy enough),

you leaned back against the opposite end and put

those soft socks next to me . . . and . . . well . . .

discretion bids me cease my description of the effect of that.

I woke, late in the afternoon, just before my father returned from work.

I had been convinced this had been a very pleasant dream

that had culminated in very real, but surreptitious, pleasure.

But then, beneath my pillow, I found your street-grimed blue socks,

tucked neatly where my head at pillowed, and where I had dreamed of

you . . . of your flesh, its scent and flavor,  and in your e'lated sweetness.

Starward

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