You’ve heard his colorful rep: immature,
grabby, good for an easy fast food dinner
and a knee-stroke movie, a boy
not out of bounds but unlikely
to impress your hunting-knife-on-his-belt
father–you’re a quick-blush sophomore, and it’s time
to start trying on boyfriends. You don’t know
a damn thing but you’re a quick study:
parking in the dark and flat-out making out,
you pay attention to what makes him
fire and ache and get lost in his testosterone
jumble. Surprisingly uncomplicated.
Tongue, neck and earlobe, your older sister’s
advice percolating with amusement, saying Try
a tease or two, why not? A boy likes
what you give him, just don’t give it all.
His fingers search for that memory shard of breast,
the soft fleshy-squeeze of life and comfort and need–
you already brain-laugh whatever. Your skin bristles
with millennia of men pounding at the door. Mothers
have passed their fragmented blood-knowledge
concerning the nature of males into your heated
intuition. This one, he is a light denim jacket,
not really the woolen toggle-coat you believe
holds off the cold, not a mink stole slinking
around your shoulders, ancient whispers
of the mate-search; he is all hands-rubbing warm,
and in the chill of the moment he will do
until the next hunk of necessary untamed meat
comes hissing or crowing or mooing along.
He’s made of threads you recognize in this
beginning. You love him giggly well enough for now.

# # #

Scott T. Hutchison’s work is forthcoming in The Atlanta Review, The Fourth River, Aethlon, The Carolina Quarterly, and Tar River Poetry.

Photo: Kae Sable, Chihuly glass sculptures, Phipps Conservatory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania