This You as a Wolf with Wings
for Holly

by Mike Young

We never pelted the train paint with baseballs.
Like most of our games, Eric had half a leg.
But I remember you striding to bowl that
September Tuesday.  You knew the dead have
flat tongues, but then you bobbled your racquet
when your friends got stationed, and I swear:
your heart is so big it rakes my brain.
It spills a snowcone down the slide.

And your first spaghetti was fine okay?
You deserve the orange oceans you drew
for the prince game, your sweet onion slant
on everything.  You deserve eyes like
our innertubes in the YMCA pool, and the
rampant holy like chlorine in your teeth.

One summer you lied about the river.
I knew you saw the tires and arrowheads,
the moon from your back, Hot Damn! caps
and greasy hands.  Sure, I knew where you
lay, but why do nights exist except for
worry and giving in?  I swear:  your heart
swallows us all whole, even you.

We crippled a dozen different shoes, remember?
Sprinting past gutters where it never snowed.
We don't even notice how salt bleaches our lips
or the scale maps that jokes have turned
our cheeks.  But yours will still out-glint
whole jungle gyms, any sunburn, any shine.

Our feet:  nowhere near the Bird Street gravel.
This push—make it like a rollercoaster, right?
This rush against your ankles, this swing,
this you as a wolf with wings like you
wanted, but sweeter, this swing, this swing,
I swear:  your heart will level any train.