for dear Polly

for dear Polly who never forgot about me and my falls.
She would wait outside my fence. I would wave as the time-clock-line
shortened.
One time she blew a kiss and it hit old Henry instead of me.
He blushed and handed it to me. It was still a little wet. We tasted it together later.
At Polly’s mother’s house under the black light. Our lips glowed because
there was a leak
at the factory
upstream.

we are fine.

we giggled because Henry kept the kiss for maybe a whole 4 seconds making funny
lovey,
dovey heart shapes in the air with pencil fingers, sketching in the air, the spheres
of the moment.
his lunch box art is for another poem, too. always Henry and spheres.

there’s a chance we never got to Polly’s mother’s house. we wanted to dip our feet
in the calm pond. she loved to talk about saving swimmers with her arms and legs.
she let me touch her lungs, the outsides. one time I kissed her outside lungs.
one time each
she let me the first time
asked the second and got all underwater breathy

in this way, Polly and I live to have
memories, funny things. pink moons,
falls and skinned knees.