Nine
Meghan Calhoun Johnston
When I was nine I went to a greek festival and I learned a secret
It was niether greek nor ffestival
But a jumbled collection of rummaged wares
Punctuated
By gyro booths and baklava
I bought a small brass bell, imagining
The tinkle had been heard on mount olympus
Or used by helen to summon adoring Troy
(or so I would have imagined had I known of greece
beyond the smell of a gyro and the taste of baklava)
when I was nine you were touched improperly
and you learned a secret
a boy showed you the promise of your manhood
in the bustling of your life from child to man
punctuated
by a ghost and a smell of sweat and skin
I came to know you, your imagining
That one day you would find a mans desire
Not used but healed with real adoring love
(but would you thus imagine that you never known or felt that touch
in the summer when I was 9?)
ah, but greece
didn't teach me to love the bells
nor you the boys.
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