Fifteenth Birthday Poem

Every vulgar name is absorbed. They all fit, they all accurately describe.

It is at once the most important

and least interesting thing. Half of everyone

     is the same, generally speaking.

It is only a matter of degree.

No matter what is told and shown

you are still just a boy - no, not just.

Eyes will always look and appraise; 

there will be ecstasy, indifference,

amazement, pain.

A forearm, a horse, a likening

     to what is not,

a price to be paid, an exhibition.

Some people need to see to believe,

and every viewing takes

     one

     tiny

     bite

out of your soul.

To call it a blessing, a curse

is melodramatic. It just is.