You showed me your pinkish shoulder,
And I wrote, Luv you, Madison. It was then
I understood we are flesh and blood,
And, like all others, we will die in time.
We lay on the grass, not touching,
Just facing the immense sky. Clouds rolled
And migrating ducks, dark as commas,
Were flying south. I closed my eyes.
I took your hand in mine and imagined us dead,
With the world wheeling above us
But you at my side, Madison, you and I touching
For all of time.
Pomegranate as My Heart
I don't have much to offer
But this pomegranate,
A fruit ancient as the Nile,
A fruit that bleeds like a heart.
I can only think of how beautiful you are.
If I could crack open this pomegranate
And share it with you,
Would that be a nice gift?
We could nibble these jewels,
Smile red smiles.
I wait at the curb, tossing the pomegranate
From one hand to the other.
Come out, please. I'm waiting.
How many times will I juggle
This ancient fruit before it drops?
If I do—and it splits open
To reveal its jewels—
I'll give you the largest part.
Driftwood
When she said no,
I took my loneliness to the river,
Frozen only a month ago.
Sunlight lit the first blossoms of spring
And made early March appear beautiful.
But it wasn't for me.
I stared at the slow cargo of blossoms,
And the ripples that hurried them along.
I kicked sand that sprayed like salt,
And sighed a dozen times.
I noticed driftwood that resembled arms
And legs. That's how I felt,
Lifeless, in other words.
You may laugh, but I bent over the river,
Adding to that ancient flow,
A young man's sadness when a girl says no.
Getting to Know You
It was rude of me to bend down
And read what it said on your ankle,
But it was unkind
Of you to walk away.
I had to follow like a duck,
Until you stopped—you placed
Your shoe on my thigh.
I retied your loose shoelaces,
And got to read the name
On your ankle bracelet—Jenny.
That was the first time we touched—
Your shoe on my thigh,
And your little toes,
Wiggling behind the cloth
Of worn tennis shoes.
It was so cute—the little toe
Was peeking out,
Peeking at me!
Imagination
To travel, we can use our imagination,
Or so says Mr. Fried, our English teacher.
If we just picked up a book,
We could be in France, Brazil, or Norway.
Mr. Fried, you're a nice man,
But, please, you pick up the book
And float on an iceberg to Norway!
You swat mosquitoes in hot, hot Brazil.
After school, I'm rolling
My skateboard thirty-three blocks,
Sixteen of which I'll be terrorized
By pit bulls and thugs lurking
Like vultures on car fenders.
You see, I have a girl
On the other side of town.
I don't want to read
About love, but feel love—
Her hand in mine,
Her hair against my throat,
And the pink bud of her tongue...
She's shy as a pony and just as tall.
Mr. Fried, you're a nice man,
A smart man. I'm sure if I told you
About my girl and me,
You could write a book.
A View of Heaven
Love, come to my house
And we'll climb my roof—
I read on the Internet
The moon will rise at 7:28
Over a forest of TV antennas
And the trees rustling their confetti
Of heart-shaped leaves.
Let the neighbors watch
What they watch. But let us, my love,
Watch the moon lift the stars.
Don't we know our planets?
We could count them out,
One by one, and admit to ourselves
That Venus is our favorite.
The planet of love?
I may be wrong.
But I'm not wrong about you,
And that the moon will not wait—
It rises at 7:28, and if you
Arrive before then
I will take your hand and lead you up
The ladder, you a star,
My Venus rising.
Forest of Boulders
Out of love,
I'm going to walk
Into the forest
And sit next to
A gray boulder.
Rain will fall,
Thickets grow
Around my feet
Until after
So many years
I will blend into
That boulder.
Then another boy
My age, hurt
In the heart,
Will hunker next to me.
Rain will fall,
Hawks settle
On his hardening
Shoulders
Until he, too,
Becomes a boulder.
Time passes.
Shooting stars cut across
The sky. The president declares
It a national park.
Hikers will climb
Over and step
Around these boulders
In the forest, where boys go
When a girl says no.
Leaving the Bookstore
Through the glass door greasy with fingerprints,
I couldn't help it. My eyes slid
From you to a girl in a red halter,
Tight jeans, sandals, straight blond hair,
Freckles on her shoulders, a toe ring...
I was taking inventory of her beauty,
And you caught me. I asked lamely,
“Does she go to our school?”
You narrowed your eyes at me,
Flashed red coals from deep inside you,
Wherever you keep your anger.
We walked in silence to the next store,
Me, a little dog, a few steps behind.
Love Medicine
From then on he couldn't sleep.
And if his stepmother
Made him his favorite meat loaf,
He propped his chin
On his hand and thought,
Just one bite—I’m not really hungry.
He couldn't do his homework.
He couldn't do his chores.
When a friend called
And said, “Hey, man, let's lift weights,”
He moaned that he was sick.
He was lovesick.
He couldn't get this girl
Out of his mind.
He wished that he could go
To the pharmacy and stagger down
An aisle to find Love Medicine—
In liquid and tablet forms
And, perhaps, Band-Aids to apply
To his heart, for he hurt there
And other places.
He would examine boxes
And read the instructions,
“Take every hour. If symptoms worsen
Discontinue use and consult your doctor.”
If only there was
Medicine to correct his dizziness
Ove
r this girl in algebra.
But she was the medicine, a remedy.
She was the doctor pressing
A cool hand to his forehead
And cooing, “There, there. All better.”
Spreading Love
My girlfriend was bouncing down
The hallway, so happy, so full of love,
And her hair lifting beautifully
After each bouncy step.
She was carrying the roses I gave her,
Petals unhooking and dropping to the ground.
She hugged me, smiled, and said, “Hi, ugly.”
This was how much we loved each other.
Later, when I walked around campus,
I saw petals everywhere,
My girlfriend so busy showing her friends
The flowers I bought her.
I had to smile. She was in love with me,
And those poor roses, just stems at the end
Of the day, blew across the schoolyard
Like kisses.
Mystery
She showed me the scar on her wrist
And said, “It doesn't hurt
Anymore.” I swallowed my fear
And asked how she got it.
She pulled her hair behind
Her ears and whispered, “An accident.”
That was it, no more.
It was after school. We were playing
Volleyball in cold weather.
Our breath hung in the air
And our wrists stung
When we slugged the ball.
I couldn't get it out of my mind.
The scar was shaped like a smile—
But I knew it was nothing
To laugh about.
Hard Work
I'm exhausted from being in love—
My fingers are blistered from writing
You e-mail love letters.
I hurt from carrying a huge torch in my heart.
No one told me love would be such hard work.
Every day I put on clean clothes, floss my teeth,
And breathe on mirrors to check my breath.
And for our first-month anniversary
I memorized a poem and worked three hours
In my neighbor's yard—with the money earned
I bought you flowers that I held before you,
All the while reciting a Sylvia Plath poem.
I have my doubts now.
I've lost weight and my lips are chapped
From saying how much I love you.
I have rings under my eyes
And my bottle of cologne is half-empty.
I'm a little more than half-empty.
My ride, as you know, is a bicycle.
Next time, when we're going somewhere,
Could I sit on the bar and you pedal?
I'm exhausted from being in love.
Iowa Evening
A shooting star burns across the sky,
And I make a wish
On its brief earthly descent.
I wish you were here
Next to me on this tractor in the field.
I helped Dad from a little
Before sunup, dropped coins
Of sweat in the cornfields,
And then washed the car—
Mom had some church thing
To do and Dad went along.
Alone, in my aching bones,
I ate dinner and then went outside
To feel the evening wind.
You're on my mind. I think of you,
The city girl, and whether
You really love me. At the sight
Of another shooting star,
I wish you would suddenly
Appear from the tall stalks
Of corn, a blanket on your arm.
I watch the stalks, a breath
Of evening wind rustling the leaves.
I wait nearly an hour
At the wheel of a tractor,
Tired as a horse.
The shooting stars fall
All over the county
And boys like me, seated
On tractors, truck fenders, porches,
Are wishing on stars—
I'm hoping that somewhere,
Perhaps at our place,
A certain girl will part
The tall stalks of corn
And throw a blanket
Into the air. Where it spreads
Is where this girl will lie
With her country boy.
Playing Our Parts
If you love me,
Meet me in front of the theater,
Where the movie
Is Hug Me If You Mean It.
Let's not go in.
Just meet me there,
And we'll play the parts
In that movie we'll never see.
I'll be the boy, you the girl,
And the world—traffic and cars
Hurling through red lights—
Our backdrop. We'll play our
Parts for free. I'll kiss you,
And the director inside me will shout,
“Cut—hug and let's do it again.”
There will be stars in my eyes,
Stars in yours. I like perfection.
I'll do it until I get it right.
Out in Nature
Not much of a hill
As hills go—and it looks like
Ants are trying to claim it
And haul its leaves underground.
How do they do this? Only nature knows.
We step back to give them room.
Thousands of ants are everywhere,
With bits of lumber in their jaws.
You and I watch them
And their marvelous capacity for work.
Then we go in search
Of another hill where we can spread
A quilt. I want to lie at your side
And pluck your hair like a harp.
I know there's music inside you,
A song, some lyrics that speak my name.
It's my nature to love you.
You are beauty—flower, leaf, sunshine.
Let the ants have every small hill
But this one. We'll lie on the quilt
And listen to the wind with its rumors
Of love and longing.
Though I get tongue-tied,
Let love now speak our names.
An Act of Kindness
As an act of kindness I steer the mower
Around bees on our lawn.
Today, I don't want to hurt anyone,
And least of all, those making honey.
My stepfather watches from the porch.
He points and says over the noise,
“Buddy, you missed over there.”
I'll go back,
But first I'll let the bees move
To another part of the lawn,
Or move to the flowering geranium.
I stop my mower, wipe my face.
I notice the kindness of bees.
They each drink from a flower
And let the next bee drink.
There's no shoving like students
In school, all of us at the fountain,
Wetting our lips, for we have a lot to say.
I'm thinking of you, love,
And the blades that may cut us down.
The world is cruel. People have knives,
And even their teeth look like knives.
What we could learn from the bees.
Gary Soto's first book for young readers, Baseball in April and Other Stories, won the California Library Association's Beatty Award and was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. He has since published short stories, plays, poetry, and many novels, including The Afterlife, which was named a Booklist Editors' Choice and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. He lives in Berkeley, California.