Mary will be my biggest challenge
with her plain pudgy face and tiny eyes
and lips that are thin as toothpicks.
Too bad I can’t ask my sister for advice.
In My Pocket
Annabelle
Standing in the parking lot,
waiting for the others to show,
stamping my feet to keep warm,
I peek into a parked car
and see a couple twisting
toward each other.
Suddenly, his face is on top of hers
and he is eating her lips, not stopping
for air, as if they’re kissing
for the last time ever.
I touch the note in my coat pocket,
its corners soft from my fingers
bending, creasing and smoothing
down the paper while I try to figure out
who popped it in there.
I can see the others coming,
placards balanced
on their shoulders,
but all I can wonder
is who actually feels
that way about me
and how can I just be
myself, knowing
somebody does?
Fleeting
Annabelle’s Mom
I admire her drive, the way she finds
the pictures, makes the posters,
assembles the group.
At her age, I was out at parties
or sneaking into bars
with fake IDs.
Youth is so fleeting,
it goes by in a
wink.
It seems like only yesterday
that I was sewing
my grad dress:
Braided straps and pleated skirt—
far too complex for
a novice—
So that, last minute, I was ripping out
the stitches, starting over,
crying, dreading
The fact that the fabric would pull
and pucker around my
middle.
Touch me
Stacey
I watch our town grow smaller
in the side mirror, measuring the buildings
between my thumb and index finger,
pretending to squish them like a bug.
I love leaving my whole world behind
as Mark and I speed along
the highway, music blaring,
my feet on the dash, getting dirty
looks from people
in other cars, giving them
the finger, Mark’s gorgeous
dark eyes piercing the road ahead.
We are driving around the mountains,
down winding country roads, some
so steep we crawl, others
only gravel roads for loggers,
not a house in sight, the sun
going down fast and dusk
making monsters of the trees.
At the end of one, he stops and gets out,
leaving me to watch him weave
between trunks, lit by nothing but
the half moon.
I sit here, listening to
owls hooting,
branches cracking,
November wind
rustling dead leaves,
my eyes straining
to see between
the black branches,
the car growing colder
by the minute.
I wonder if there are
bears in these mountains,
and what if Mark doesn’t
come back and I can’t
drive because he’s taken the keys
and my cell phone signal is dead?
Would my parents come look for me?
They didn’t look for my sister when she left.
Sure, they knew where she’d gone
and even had her new address,
but shouldn’t they have looked for her
anyway?
Then suddenly Mark appears,
the moon catching the zipper
of his jacket, turning him into
a vertical streak of silver.
At school he’s all over me:
hands, arms, legs always
wrapping round me, but
now, when we’re parked
out of town, he
doesn’t try
to touch me.
He just fires up the Mini
and zigzags us back
to civilization.
FOUND IT
Mark
I think I found it, the piece
of land my dad dreamed of buying,
surrounded by pine trees that grew high enough
to touch the clouds.
It’s pretty dark here in the woods,
looking for the stream, listening
for the trickling sound
that pulled me in as a kid.
My dad found it first shot—no bad turns
for him when it came to navigating roads—
he’d have found it blind-folded because
he had an internal compass and always
Knew where to steer, except that one icy day
when no amount of swerving worked,
the force of nature pulling the truck toward him
like two tons of death.
Pinch Pinch
Christopher
I keep doing it because I can’t
believe it’s real.
Annabelle didn’t cringe
when I confessed.
She turned redder than me,
rosy apple red,
And when I took her hand
there was a spark.
Her eyes widened as it dawned
on her that it was me,
Then she pulled out the poem,
crumpled and creased,
And I nodded and said,
I hope you liked it,
And I could tell by her smile
that she did.
Then the door banged open
and the others clomped in,
Shattering our moment
like glass.
How do You Know
Annabelle
When someone is it?
It’s not like a game of tag
where you count,
eyes-closed,
against a tree
then run squealing
and tag the slowest
runner.
Christopher wasn’t even running.
He was standing right next to me
like he was a tree
that I could’ve leaned
against and he would’ve
wrapped his arms
like branches around me.
I’d never really looked at him too closely before.
But now, only inches away,
his big brown eyes drinking me in,
his hand brushing back my hair,
his tall body bending toward me
as if he wanted to blend into me,
I saw him for the first time.
And now I’m wondering: what will next time be like?
Will it be hard to stand around handing out flyers,
trying to get people to see what’s wrong
with the world when Christopher is around,
because all I’ll want to do is stand near him
and see if he looks at me like that again,
because when he did, something in me flipped,
making an acrobat of my emotions?
SAILING
Mark
The lake was in the middle
of the woods, ringed by maples
with buckets set in to trap
the sap trickling in spring.
My dad made boats out of newspaper,
folded over and over and over in a way
I could never follow and then coated
with shoe spray to keep them afloat.
We raced to see whose boat
could float the farthest, like
a mini regatta in the woods, our
leaf flags flapping in the breeze.
He said the boats would sail
all summer long, bumping
into canoes and strange fish
long after we’d disappeared,
And he’d enjoy seeing them in his head
as he zoomed down the gray highway
to the airport, surrounded by nothing
but concrete and cars and smog.
It made me mad that the boats
didn’t come back, but he said
it was always good to leave your mark:
I suppose I am his.
How Could She?
Stacey
I saw her with Christopher.
He’s always been such a loser.
I can’t believe she’d go out with him.
It’s like she’s lost her senses and can’t see
his pimply skin or geeky neck that sticks
out of those shirts his mom buys for him.
It makes me wonder how we used to be friends
and what we ever had in common, which
couldn’t have been much because I could never
Go near someone like Christopher who’s so
different from Mark, who’s so gorgeous
and built, hot enough to be a model.
When I saw them, they were holding hands
and he hung onto every word she said as they walked past our lounge, oblivious to everything.
I called to her but she didn’t even blink. It was like
they were walking on the moon, they were so into
each other, Christopher smiling and nodding
While she was talking,
their shoulders tapping like glasses
as if every word was a celebration.
Crescendo
Increasing gradually in volume
Mary
Today’s the first rehearsal
and I’m already
regretting trying out.
Stacey is working
make-up.
I bet she can’t wait
to get her hands on me,
to make me over
into a monster, just
to amuse herself.
Will it look rude if I
bring a book and simply
nestle in a chair, incognito,
until it’s my turn on stage
or will they expect me
to be part of the whole
Rah rah rah thing, the entire cast and crew spinning
a web of excitement, rising in crescendo until
the big night when the bright lights go on
and the backstage sizzle carries us
out there to dazzle the crowd?
Will anyone mind
if I just watch
from afar?
What Stacey Thinks
Annabelle
I wonder what Stacey thinks
when she sees me with Christopher.
Does she remember the way kids mocked him
because he stuttered like a machine gun?
Does she wonder how I can touch him
when his skin has patches of acne?
Does she compare him to Paul and Mark
and beam at how well they fare?
Do I care?
At first I did.
I was shy to hold his hand at school, knowing
everyone would look and point and talk.
But we hung on tight and now no one cares,
except Stacey, who always glares
When we walk into the auditorium
and climb the stairs to the glass booth
Where Christopher and his friends
are working the sound and lights.
Christopher showed me how to throw the big switch
And flood the stage with light, exposing
Every square inch, even the dusty corners.
It reminded me of the way Stacey stares,
Illuminating every part of me, taking me in, frame
by frame, like she’s storing away the image.
It makes me uneasy because I don’t know what
she’s planning to do with it.
I Never did Know Mary
Stacey
Even though we were a constant
threesome
Annabelle was always our
go between,
As if Mary could only be
reflected
To me through the mirror of
Annabelle,
So that now, when I watch her
play Chopin,
It’s like watching someone I’ve
never met,
Someone mysterious, with
hidden depths.
I’d never have expected
such music
To flow from her fingers
so freely,
Because she always struck me
as heavy,
All locked up inside her
closed-off self.
Even the way she walks—head
pointing down,
Blocking out the world around her,
blinkers on,
Oblivious to everything
important,
Like who’s walking by, or who to
look good for,
Who to laugh for, who to shine for,
In the hallways of high school as
expected.
When I do her makeup I’m
supposed to
Accentuate her features and
make them pop,
But I think I’ll use white powder to
efface her
And dress her in white to
erase her
So all that’s left is sound:
sensual.
A word I never would have used
for Mary.
Overture
Mary's Mom
She’s doing it and that’s all that
matters.
It has to be a step in the right
direction.
I hope it will be the start of
something,
Take her outside the tight
little world
She’s built in the basement,
playing
Piano in the near dark, her music
spreading
Along the floorboards, like a
colony
Of musical mice who stop
scurrying
The minute anyone else
appears.
Christopher Is
Annabelle
Christopher is the guy no one
notices,
standing behind his locker door
to hide his
tall and lanky body and his
pimply face.
Christopher is the guy who gets
the best grades
and turns beet red delivering
French
orals
but can whiz through an algebra
equation
on the board at the speed of light
times twenty.
Christopher is the guy who’s been
in my class
since grade one, front row and centre
quiet, shy,
kicking soccer balls in the yard
at recess,
never showing off or seeking
attention.
Christopher is the guy who held
my hand so
tenderly and looked into my eyes
so deeply
that he turned into someone new
and handsome,
the chocolate brown of his eyes
suddenly
delicious.
NEVER LONG ENOUGH
Mark
The road is never long enough.
I’ve got to find a way to go farther.
One day I’ll keep going and never look back,
Leave school and Stacey and my house and mother behind,
Especially my mother because I can’t stand the way she now
has to speak for my father
So that even though he’s gone his words are still a constant
chatter of disappointment in my ears
Until I feel I’ll scream and never stop screaming so loud
my relatives will hear me all the way across the continents
in Lebanon
And maybe hop on a plane and come over to check out what’s
happening to the only part of the family that moved away to
the new world, the land of opportunity,
Only to find a two-bedroom apartment in an old run-down
complex with rusty balconies where my mother spends all her time
crying and wondering why my father had to die
Except they won’t find me because I’ll have found the nerve to just
keep driving, all the way west or south, even though the police
will stop me wherever I go because I’m a young guy with
olive-skin and an Arabic last name.
Injustice
Annabelle
It’s what I see
when people’s carts are loaded
with stuff: stuffed bears,
cartoon slippers
and plastic Santas.
What I see is
stuff nobody really needs:
tacky, cheap, made
by people who have
nothing.
What my mom sees is
harmless stuff
bought with love