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Jo-Ann Reid

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Knowledge of “Boys” By Age Twelve

 

Climbing the rotting wood of an over turned boat

like a beached whale

in this small Cape yard-

my sister and I searched together for slugs

but only found discarded hooks and lures.

 

I would wear them

dangling over my ears

not minding the worm guts rust, or fishy smell.

 

I twisted thin metal them through the first thick layer

of skin on my thumb.

I’d learned it from an old man 

whose wandering forced secrets.

 

At night, other girls ran

off kissing boys smeared, 

with sloppy, stolen lipstick.

 

My feet forced worms apart

on dirt like coffee grinds

I expertly skimmed rocks on the water, 

and smoked half-butt cigarettes stashed

by the dock, in a half-buried coffee can with $2.37 inside.

 

When it got dark enough to sneak Camels and Heineken,

when the older boys’ mothers went up to bed, 

in the boat shed, I would spy on stories of big brothers

tours of duty, and this broad and that.

 

           

Stretched out on the dock 

one of those boys taught me about bait and tackles,

while another showed how to tug on a line just right, 

how to let a large fish

know who was in charge.

 

         

I think they gave me my first sips of beer.

I’d pick at the raised skin on the tips of my

now freed thumbs. Following a call

of my mother’s voice demanding me to bed.