You were always the most cliché of boys
How gauche
Teeth like milk
Eyes like deers’
Perfect locks
Impossible to ignore
There I sat
A monster
Scarred immobile
Barley live
A nightmare waiting to happen
To someone like you
You fought mightilly
Remaining fixed
Entrenched in your position
In your mother’s womb
Until they cut you free
When I first saw you I knew
I had never known fear
My exhalation
A gale to you
My hands
a lion’s paws
I could swallow you
With my eye
How could I explain?
You were too small
For even the tiniest words
One mistake and you might
Grow up
Like me
How could I explain
My life
Everything I treasure
In a small
Worn
Satchel?
How could I sever
An umbilicus
That had no flesh?
We travel light
We move fast
Sleeping in clothes means
No wasted time
Crackers and cheese
A delight fit only for
Shabbat
I am no different
A wanderer
A gypsy
A dream
An elusive fox,
Cunning and witty
I escaped everyone
Then you – no chess player –
One move: “I am here!”
And my pretense is finished
I see your skin
Purple of royalty
I see my trembling peasant hands
And I know
I had never known love