It was First Grade.
You first noticed me.
In true form—
you never wasted any time
(preschool was presumptuous)
a chase around the schoolyard
a pull on the ponytails
a puckish stare across the classroom
There was Lauren & Bridgid
too,
but I was the only one you ever
passed notes to.
Clumsily bumping into each other
in the coatroom
one winter morning
and we both were lazy
when the rumor spread that we had kissed.
I left after Third and returned in Sixth;
you didn’t waste a day Paul
but you had changed.
You were now the boy who got all the girls.
And I was left to recall:
The summers you’d walk
ten blocks to my shore house
where you claimed you’d come
to play basketball with my brothers.
You’d pull me away after making
known the appropriate façade—
to carve our puppy love in the old
oak tree Down By The Boardwalk:
PFG+SJG
Perhaps we should have
relied on the fact that
our initials looked good
side-by-side.
do you like me?
circle one: yes or no
Paul Goldbeck,
do you remember me?
you gave me your number
a few years ago
before you went away to school.
I never called, Paul.
so instead I wrote.
Leave a Reply