The oak stood first, so the walk swings around
the only bend in a long stretch
next to
the way to the store, to work, to practice
my personal through-way with space to plot
my next to–
a place to pass
They stood, all three, under the oak.
She leaned into the older boy
and rested her head down across his sholder;
he held her.
Her pink shirt, his white, became candy stripes
just in the tuck of the bend of the walk
The other boy creates
a long dismissal of the sky
checking and rechecking his hypothesis
that it is, and doesn’t matter
The pose holds a long time,
enough to creep the long length
enough to wish them not the necessity of finding
an end
to a hug that entwines,
denying the other boy and all else that is and
is between us.
More than clothes—
the excess of skin, hard bones and all this matter
our self, and conscious endless thinking,
it will finally pull one apart from other
saying, no, not yet, and
no
while a memory, or promise, cries
yes
They were there still the next day
on my way
though, of course, they weren’t