The woods are thick with forsythia bushes.
He laughs when I fall.
I swear, Mickey says, you are slow as molasses.
Mickey and me, we grew up together.
He lives in that black and white house down the road.
Not really blood but we say that we are.
Mickey shows me things.
How to French kiss, and how joints are rolled.
What boys do at night, in the dark, and alone.
We stop and we stand at the edge of the creek.
He whistles, he laughs.
Ain’t that something, he says.
Like one of them mannequins posed in a store.
The water is still, it shines in the sun.
Soon two detectives will come to the door.
They will speak in soft tones to my wide-eyed mother.
At the black and white house they will go through his things.
They will find pictures.
A bracelet, a ring.
Mickey is laughing, and shaking his head.
She don’t even look real.
Ain’t that something, he says.
Like one of them figures that’s made out of wax.
The woods are thick with forsythia bushes.
The water is shining, we stand in the sun.
The creek is still, like a casket of glass,
and Mickey and I,
for a moment,
are blood.