When you said fuck you, sweaty
and predictable as canned corn,
I did not recognize that you
were only a mean boy, that you
were never a friend.
When you spelled boobs on
your calculator, I could only giggle,
having none, hell, I could only
giggle. You could long divide. Your
hair was dark.
I knew you were mean, but in
that flim-flam of our shared youth—
the seating chart of the fifth grade—
and that bright radish of your
rebellion—
forbidden words were sugarcane
in water over ice.
I wrote your name with a marker
on a hat box of beads
and I slid it under my bed.
