ontario boy

you were there on the parkway when i was just six inches tall. "oh, and here's me, fighting and dancing to avoid your combat boots; baby, it's been seven weeks and brilliant, but i am tired."so you gather me up in your breast pocket; i am ankle-deep in brown courduroy, i am rocking with your motion, going where you're going. we take an eight-week holiday, ricocheting laughter off one another like rust-red beads across a gold-wood floor. i won't miss you, but then, i might never be away from you.

and on the shore of lake ontario, you call me sandeye- the name from my story. i am twelve inches tall, clinging with one small hand to the seam of your jeans. the lake water we collect in sacks which you shoulder, and swagger under. in 2003, i met a boy with a mouth like yours, but his eyes weren't as strong and alive as yours- not half. i can taste whole atlantic deserts in the flash of your teeth, baby. seven weeks, seven seas; i think you're brilliant.

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for a while i've been pretending i can feel your calls coming to me before you've finished dialing the area code. my heart beats on the same wavelength as your dialtone. "sandeye," you say, "scales are falling away," and i wholly believe you. I am twenty-six inches, in love with the way your hand cups around my head when i walk with you. i walked with you all day; we sat on
broad stone steps when i was tired and you are wonderfully human; the hum and strength of your blood under your warm skin fascinates me.

this tuesday we climbed to the top of the elevated wetlands, watched over the don valley and you told me many things you were sure of. coming down, i reached thirty-nine inches. my fingers were little birds scavenging for cracks to hold in their beaks, but your hands were rough as stone and one more thing you were sure of.

and today i can hardly wait to see you tomorrow; i know you will remind me of heated masculine plains. i know i will garner so many inches from the thickness of your jeans, the vibrations of your lion's voice, the cannon-gun steps of your black boots. perhaps i will grow so you can lay one arm across my shoulders, and after that i am wholly content.