• this piece is sort of a...conglomeration of images i have when i think back on my own sexual development, but none of the contents are autobiographical. so, enjoy the piece. OH! and thanx to the lovely sccs folks for their help and support. and now, GAYLY FORWARD!

puberty

little boys and their admirable thoughts
							
learn well, in time, to deduce him and his relativistic

seductive mathematics. 

it was not his fault. he couldn't know.



how early did he know the wind would kiss him? 

and bless him? and the sun would make him strong and golden?...and he would be

"not like the other boys in the trailer park."

no. not like them at all.     with eyes that covet

and balls that are ripened in fear, like shaggy plums

caught dangling, shamelessly in the breeze

from ample, supple branches      struggling towards the light.

rough hands placed on ungainly limbs...pulled taught

over and over again; establishing a rhythm, to which his

heart beat faster to and his bird hips could catch on to

quick enough--sho' nuff.



those      other boys

they'd like to snap him in two for what he's seen. 

they'd like to snatch him up and toss him into the sewage duct,

shove his face in the boy's room toilet for those 

big brown covetous eyes of his,

that over-eager tent in his jockeys...

gettin' the better of him.      and, what's more than that, 

they even liked to watch his mother whip him 

with those very same wick switches

always still green, so as they might retain the sting more capriciously.

and she did all this for his benefit:



you're not gonna be that way, boy. i'll have no sinners in my home.



little boys and their admirable thoughts

would do well to keep their eyes on him.

they say he was      touched

...when he was younger; by a preacher from the next town over.

	--so, that's what makes him do the things he does. 

	--why, yes, i do believe that explains it all.

	--makes you wonder....

what sorts of things go on in a church men's room in a cool cool summer basement;

cement all over, to catch the echo...



guilty.

guilty.

guilty.

with every stroke of his palm. his thoughts      on one of them or another.

on one of them or more. 

adding up the pieces of their anatomy that 

	matched his own...and fit the lock and key in his soul and in his loins.

torturing him the way they so delighted in doing, 

did they know they were feeding what they called

"his wickedness" 

which they outwardly sought to smite?	      would they stop if they did?

would they simply pass him by, the way all of their respective mothers commanded?

fearing--

that brand of sin is catching.

yes it is, lord.      yes, indeed, it is.



how could he be held responsible?

how could he know that what he felt was wrong?

	...no one 

had ever warned him 

before.

• Chy Ryan Spain

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