I Can't Look Away

I Can't Look Away

I'm ten and living in a new house on a new street in a new town,
only it's me that's new, on this six-weeks-here September Saturday,
with the sleepy sun still resting on Steege Hill, and dad says,
who knows, you might even have fun, which usually means
you'll survive, even if you feel like you've been overrun by fire
ants, and I slip into my jersey, the one I kept from the wash,
because I want to make sure they know it's not some fiction,
that a boy like me, all thin and awkward in my ten-year skin,
could make the team, and mom's at the door, box of chocolates
in her hand, like I'd even be up now, heading out into the world
for the heck of it, like I'd forget the reason if she wasn't there
to remind me, and she says, don't take it to heart if no one's interested,
which I think means, you might as well go back to bed, until
she says, but I'll start you off on the right foot, as she takes
two of those candy bars the size of license plates, stuffs
a buck for each into my free hand, says, there you go,
like anything's that easy, and CJ's already waiting at the corner,
his jersey all white and unblemished like the two of us,
and his shoulders are heavy with that rather-not-be-here, just like mine,
and he says, I can't believe we gotta do this, raise money for a bus
ride to some stupid tournament, me shaking my head, but here we are,
shuffling two decades worth of feet, door to door, up and down the street,
one block, two, nearing the end of the third, and I can't remember
who bought what, I just know I've got half a box to go, plus another
at home, and the only reason I didn't bring them both was because
of what dad said, when he said, people see you got an arms' load
of anything they won't buy it, looks like you're too far
from where you want to be, but if they think you're close,
they might just give you a break, and there's thirty bars to a box,
only now there's fifteen, here, and we're at the apartments
we're supposed to avoid, where all the rough ones live,
that faded brick, like someone washed it years ago and took the color out,
and the chocolate smell's on me, as we work our way,
alternating, CJ then me, like something out of the playbook,
and at first we kept our heads low when they said, no,
like it was part of us they were turning down, but now
we can't hold it in when the other gets a door in his face,
and you'd think they could, at least, come up with something new
when they make excuses—how they're allergic or they gave up
sweets or they don't have kids on the team—and in my head
I'm already thinking what the next copout will be, which is why
I don't notice the door standing open, just a screen between
me and the two of them, on the couch, and you can smell the oldness,
the seen-better-days of those fine metal wires crisscrossing,
and you can hear the heavy breaths, like one is chasing the other,
chasing and chasing up and down some hill, and then that sound
I'll never forget, just as my knuckles find the door frame,
and the guy jumps fast, and that's when I see it, all that nothing-on,
that's when I see her head farthest away, feet closest, and she
sees me see her, and she smiles, but doesn't hide her nakedness,
just raises an arm, as the guy steps to the door in this long t-shirt,
with its crashing waves, and he says, what the hell do you want,
and I don't dare ask him to move so I can see the girl, so I can see
the long brown hair, the way it doesn't cover anything, or that quick
patch of it below the flat stomach, or the not-such-a-young-girl
breasts, I'd only just found them, and I feel like I should run,
but I can't move, and he must hear my hot-thoughts because he says,
ain't you ever seen anyone naked before, which is when I look at him,
and he smiles, says, go on, take a look, as he steps aside,
and the girl's standing now, but she doesn't move like some
wide receiver trying to get away, she just smiles again, says,
what's your name, and I tell her, the sun shining through some window
on the other side unlike any sun I've ever seen, the way it shapes her,
the way it hides in shadow those parts I want to see again, to remember,
because it's as if they've already left me, like I can't be sure,
and CJ's back in the parking lot, and I don't know what he's thinking,
but he's not going to believe me, and the girl just stands there, asking,
what do you want, with her curves, and her smoothness,
and that mystery I never would have thought could get beneath
your skin, like some sort of itch you just can't reach, and I say, I'm, um,
selling these for football, and she asks, what they are, and the guy opens
the screen, takes the box, shows her, chocolates, he says, and I think,
come closer, please, but she just says, how much, and I say, a buck,
and she says, here, and the guy says, hold on, only he's talking to me,
and he takes the box with him, and she pulls a bar out, says, now
that's a big one, like it's some sort of joke, and she says, you know
what they say about chocolate, and I say, it's my mom's favorite thing,
and the girl says, I bet, and, how many you got left, and she counts them,
you can see her mouth move, the way her face is all dark and the sun's there
on her, and you can see the smooth tips of her front and the cool slope
of her back, even through those tiny squares you can almost see,
and I say, fifteen, and she says, yep, and clutches something
from the back of the couch, and it's jeans, and she takes a fist from a pocket,
hands it to the guy, drops those jeans to the floor, moves to the couch
with the box and the sun and my eyes on her hip, and the guy hands me
a crumpled twenty and I give him five ones, and he says, you better
take one more for the road, and he laughs, as he steps aside again,
and the girl says, don't be a stranger, and she puts something in her mouth
and says, oh, this is good, and that sound from before is in her, like some
sort of animal waiting to get out, and the guy's voice is low and he says,
only don't be interrupting me next time or we're gonna have a problem,
capeesh, and he closes the screen, walks to the couch, and I still
can't move, but I do, and CJ says, what happened,
and I say, nothing, but, all the way home, I think about the girl
and that small patch of brown, that flash of sin, and, even now,
in this new skin, in this new world, I can't look away from the sun.