I need to learn to look at you less,
to not get caught tongue-tied
in the terrain of your lips.
What are you doing? you ask,
Watch the road! Oh my God!
Later, at the bowling alley,
I let myself look. I let myself look
because it’s my homework,
my job, to pay attention
to your hands, your shoulders,
to the back of your head
until I can barely stand it anymore
and I return to my book, pleased
to be able to read aloud (nobody
can hear me under the thunderous rolling).
Two boys run past to the pro shop,
the shorter one trailing the taller one.
Brothers, maybe best friends,
doesn’t matter. I know something today
I didn’t know before
about your voice, my strength,
the joyous equation of diet Coke
plus a strike and suddenly I’m overwhelmed
with something akin to ecstasy. I pretend you’re a stranger and start this all over again.