Three That Moved Me
by Marc Pietrzykowski


As will happen with young boys, my first crush
Was on a girl far more developed than I
And five inches taller besides.
Ah, Laurel! The most womanly twelve-year old
Ever to slap clogs on the linoleum floor
Of William Gillette Elementary...On the very morning
I resolved to ask her to the Fireman's Carnival
A fly, small and shining blue-black, shot into my nose
As I walked through the bus circle.
The scene is still clear: the buzzing in my sinus,
How lodged the bugger had become,
The look on Laurel's face as I staggered into the lobby
blowing hard enough
That the fly shot out
And whizzed away.
I wrote my first poem that night,

But I didn't mention the fly.
Then there was Myrtle, pleasantly round,
Brown as a cup of cocoa--
She liked George Benson and wore shoes
That were too small for her feet
So that the skin poked out over their tops like dough;
We got so far as to make a date for the Spring Dance
Before her friends found out
And made clear to her
The immorality of dating a white boy.

Ivy had no such problem, sweet Ivy
Whose skin was so pale
It almost glowed--she lived up the street
With her father (who made his living
Karate-chopping watermelons in half on the stomachs
Of volunteers from the audience), two brothers,
And the ugliest bulldog anybody had ever seen.
We sent notes folded into elaborate packages to one another
Discussing the difference between liking someone
And <i>liking</i> someone, until one day
She invited me over when her Dad was away.
When I got there, brother John said
She was still at the rec center
Learning how to weave leather, so he and I
Swiped a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels
From the liquor cabinet and slammed it all down
In twenty minutes, so's not to taste it. Then somebody
Got the idea to drop the dog down the laundry chute,
Where it got stuck near the bottom
And started whining
Just as Ivy walked in with a handful
Of coiled friendship braids. John and I
Stumbled out the back door, leaving Ivy
To get the beast free by squirting a tube of Prell
Down the chute and putting some leftover hamburger
At the other end for encouragement.

That's what John told me, anyhow,
Since Ivy never spoke or even looked at me again.
I wrote my next poem about her, and the dog,
And about Laurel and Myrtle and the cruel tint
That lay across the world like shade,
And about whoever it was
Vandalized my good winter coat with India ink;
I wrote it on thick-ruled paper
While sitting on the foundation wall
Of a soon-to-be manufactured home,
blowing a single-note song
Across the mouth of an empty pop bottle,
Looking out across the treeless pocks
Of the Wildherd Oaks housing tract.






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