as if something sparked a memory of
birth at two-forty-seven
on a Sunday
during a rainstorm.
Inside his narrow cot,
an itchy issued blanket –
coarse as the accented words and
foreign fingers wrapped around
his conditioned thigh.
“Vat yoo doo to me izt art,”
is exhaled as
breasts are flattened
against his back and
hair to his lips
like leaves to
moist concrete.
The skin of his hands is cracking
as Jimmy Smith becomes
subject to his first
in-class erection.
It is because of Mrs. Dopleworth,
the blue flower dressed
