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Youthexpand_moreDan Gerber reads poems of boyhood, and from the end of his mother’s life.
What’s left is a thumbhouse, an inch of gristle inside skin walls.
The air has grown inside me. It’s become a sanctuary.
Not all his children love themselves. Look at little Adrienne.
One day, we will all turn into choir girls—all soft and hollow inside.
Wicked fictions wrap a young tongue’s sweet-tipped fibs into fact.
My “lonelymaking.” Also known as my horrible secret, continent-wide.
I wore the rose pants for weeks without telling anyone.
He had looked on it a thousand times and it never failed to kill him.
The world seemed newly made and filled with a frightening silence.
A boy knew he wouldn’t see his mother’s face as he rose from the mat.
If you hear your name again just say, Here I am. Maybe it’s the Lord.
All I could focus on was if he was going to ask me to date him.
The draft of ten handwritten pages would have to be cut back to five.
Turns out my body’s a dollar sweet potato, her screen said.
When the population was whiter, they fawned over the Korean.
I am the king of doing wheelies on the Stingray bicycle of my mind.
I drank every night until late and drew earth-shaking conclusions.
Today the game was to try to catch one of the cats in a pillowcase.
What I really meant to say is that I am tired. Beauty can demand so much.
The door opened, and Dan stormed in, shouting, “Motherfuckers!”
Once, when young and proud, I tried to grasp the enormity of the past.
I was only five when Dad told me I had died. “You drowned,” he said.
Albert came to her rescue. “The Great Gatsby’s our religion,” he said.
We fed our dreams inevitable sins, the kind you lie about till you grow mean.
Someone seems to have made an excellent age-specific insight.
Mama would say beware of the little flaws that make one homely.
She always came back with her lipstick smeared all over her mouth.
We need to stop talking about it, we need to put some pants on.
He squinted and looked off a little beyond where we were.
