Young Wolf

politics
sunk our adult friendship
my insistence
black lives matter
collided against
your thin blue line
shower of defensive red sparks
yet you still cross my mind
I remember
15 year old boy
dirty blond hair
spilling over one blue eye
snaggle-tooth smile
crushing hard on another girl
on our island of misfit toys
can’t remember when
ground started to shift
on tectonic plates
pushing us onto the same continent
until we were stealing first kisses
in blue twilight
mosquitoes feasting on our legs
seamless transition
from you + I
to us
your hackles raised
police dog on alert
every time he was near
didn’t need to tell you
you instinctively knew
something was wrong
the way he looked at me
talked to me
baited me
punished me
for my rage-filled self-emancipation
in my tweens
sometimes I would still fold up
an origami fortress
after he was gone
a lesser boy
would have trembled
grown man three times his age
puffing out his chest
pissing in the dirt
but you growled deep in your throat
loud enough
long enough
to make it clear
that neither one of us
planned to lie down in supplication
bare our necks to him
thank you for that

© 2017 Revised 2019 Christine Elizabeth Ray – All Rights Reserved