Jean Anne Feldeisen

Like Boys

Angry and hard the heat that day
when I drove the empty road
past wild blueberry fields
lined with goldenrod.

Standing on the gravel side
of the road was a boy,
age twelve, or so it seemed,
one foot on, one off his skateboard. 

He wore cutoff jeans,
sneakers with no socks,
his chest bared, glistening
in the glare of the sun. 

I wondered what made him decide
to ride the hot black asphalt
of the empty road. Not a single
girl to impress or another kid to challenge.

I flirted with this fellow-feeling—
remembered riding my bike
down the long hill of Brook Lane,
on a hot day, the urge to lift my shirt

over my head and fling it
as I whizzed past the neighbors
my feet on the handlebars
wind in my hair, for the thrill

of being a girl in the sun.

Back to Issue XIV…