Today, beneath a shade tree
Listening to La Valse D’Amelie
for the piano, for one
Secondhand medication just
dissolved under tongue—

And now it’s “Wild Tigers
I Have Known”
(Emily Jane White)
Title to a film,
hit close to home as
The me back in 8th grade
Turning boylust on a girl—
her self-conscious pink-redness,
Her flower unfurled,
Snatched up and crumpled
As a tissue at a funeral.