Baptised in Ink - 1. Two Boys

TWO BOYS

the last school bell
echoes down the halls
(with predictable jubilation
from the manumitted slaves
of algebra and syntax)
and in two eleventh-grade boys
there races
a chemical domino cascade
of lust down their veins

the boys meet at the gate
shake hands platonically
with careful smiles
betraying nothing but friendship;
they begin to wind a path through
the teeming press of bodies
(the distance of friendship strictly managed)
past the whirl of impromptu street corner symposia
and smokers punishing their lungs behind the bus shelter

delicate negotiation is essential
to avoid the traps and land mines
of selective intimacy,
out of habit the red-cheeked discussion starts
with an innocent observation
agreement
question
answer
chuckle
another question
another answer
a laugh
etc.,
as the two finally reach their target
(the blonde one’s home)

a parentless home still inexplicably has
an undiminished parental authority
and an accusatory knowledge in absentia
of what takes place
in the son’s room
when the door closes,
and it takes a minute or two
for both boys
to push to the back
of their minds the feeling of
all-seeing window-eyes
and brick-brain memory
and door-wide mouths of betrayal

tired clothes fall
in islands heaped on the carpet,
exposed bodies,
the intimate details:
freckles on shoulders,
the birthmark on the hip,
the whisper of light hair
shooting roots through the innocence of flesh
on the brink of adulthood
knocking on the door of sin

the thought of forbidden entanglement,
the adhesive of naked sweat
accelerates the pulses of the young men, old boys,
and any other thoughts
that belong to the land of the dressed
drifts like flotsam to immediate forgetting,
the world fades to an abstract concept;
it’s only this moment, this reality,
the negotiation of intimacy
the merging of the physical
the touch and taste of slick skin
sinking in passion
into the moment
in each other’s bodies

white
wet

sigh: universal note of contentment
lazily carried on the crest of air

two lives constrict to the same thoughts:

I could hand my entire life over
to this sensation
this feeling

this body next to mine, on mine, under mine, in mine,
these hands, arms and legs
this neck, back and mouth

I could just stay here like this….

let these perfect emotions
wash over, down, me
and drown in a flood of
ineffable pleasure

we’ll make love
in my room
in his room
under the stars

without permission