Another missed lunge at the high jump. 

You spring harshly

back into concrete’s crease, cringing but smiling

as I ran to you when you fell. 

The springtime sweats

around us.

We poke at your bruises, grimacing fingers, angst, and talk 

about the peaches in my backpack.

How you held me, once

so tightly, they bruised dark skin, sickly

sweet juices dribbling down

our chins as we laugh, say 

isn’t romance a funny thing? 

It paints us with the pain

of tenderness, its sweet persistence.

When the clouds stop carrying the rain, you carry me and 

we run. We 

are a jubilee, soggy screams, laughter still tumbling

when we fall. Romance sure is a funny thing — sour and tangy,

cold, like the running of blood

across my calf. You brush a hand

gently against the cut, gentler

against my cheek, softly

noting that romance is a funny thing. Skewed,

this religion we worship.

If it rains, we swim the flood to pray, paddle

with the weight of six days, shorter ones, 

we beg, more hours of worship, we beg,

bruised knees, purple prayer, a night

of hard blue, colored longing, this must be

the promise of death, an absent epiphany.

When the bleeding stops, we lie

on soggy grass and whisper through a dying

rain. Time drips through our fingers 

so we intertwine them.

I circle my thumb across your palm and look for

your fate’s ridges. I’ve read 

them, rewritten them, rebelled

for them, but I 

still do not know why 

we are here, where

words have no simpler meaning, where

a quiet breath is your quiet

hand in mine. Sour, sweet

Sweet boy, you spring 

high, and yet, you fall.