Across the initialed table,
thin-limbed within
a pink NKOTB sweatshirt,
flicking pencils at my lap,
nest of blonde hair glowing
under the humming ballasts
of the lance-long bulbs,
she still perches, smirking slyly.

I can't shake her.
She is installed somewhere
I can't reach. I remember
all my childhood crushes,
but only this one is so vivid.

She invited me to her birthday,
at her house, knowing I liked her.
She fawned over a boy
from a different school.
Every poem I've written
about her names him: Adam.
I cried in her yard, bundled inward,
went quiet, waited for my mother.
On the ride home I stared
as the green fields striped by.

She grew up, married,
started a family. I kept track
only through hearsay.
When she died in childbirth,
I surprised myself by crying.