The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will ever have,

               for he does not really see you.

— Robert Penn Warren

let’s calculate the force you put into the ground

before you knew how to skate

how you were a pile of clothes

muffled by gloves and cold

our hands could not rouse you

‘til you reared up, honourable,

law-abiding permafrost

cross-hatched into your right cheek and

all the God burned out of you

what a sight:

for once,

your mother and father talking about you.

what should be done with you?

you invited us for dinner in your tilted house

the falling water and the wine bottles

candle-mouthed

someone talked about how smoke would rise clean

off their brother’s limbs when he ran cross-country in winter

and ruined the dew

when you were little you confused,

in fact fused, terrible

and terrific in your mind

and you wreak what you sow

someone picks up a magazine

another asks what even is a human interest story

and the conversation reliably turns

but I’m still thinking about wreak and words that are only ever used one way anymore and feeling sorry for

who?

everything I say I believe

and I’m never right

but I believe everything anyway.

all that to say

all that looked-at must leave a mark on your face