[I never knew what to name from my life and what to hide]

            I never knew what to name from my life and what to hide 
to conceal in another word

            what to give to someone and what to keep but found happiness 
suspended in the moment between touch

            and judgment like how when my friend wrapped a white shirt 
around his head and it fell to his shoulders

            he said I want you to imagine this is how long my hair is 
or that day the sound of the schoolbell

            became cool as it washed through the cornfield and Rachel 
and I were leaning on the fence

            we must have been seven and her shirt had a bundle of red 
cherries she scratched and said See

            you can smell cherries Here and she leaned toward me 
and pressing my head to her collarbone

            closing my eyes I felt the branches opening within me 
I pulled away and said Yes you really can

            and the feeling is hesitant ecstasy a will to change 
that derives from our inability

            to change ourselves to make a bowl of cherries appear 
or to beg our fathers to let our hair grow forever