Twelve years old and lovesick, bumbling <br />and terrified for the first time in my life, <br />but strangely hopeful, too, and stunned, <br />definitely stunned—I wanted to cry, <br />I almost started to sob when Chris Klein <br />actually touched me—oh God—below the belt <br />in the back row of the Skokie Theatre. <br />Our knees bumped helplessly, our mouths <br />were glued together like flypaper, our lips <br />were grinding in a hysterical grimace <br />while the most handsome man in the world <br />twitched his hips on the flickering screen <br />and the girls began to scream in the dark. <br />I didn’t know one thing about the body yet, <br />about the deep foam filling my bones, <br />but I wanted to cry out in desolation <br />when she touched me again, when the lights <br />flooded in the crowded theatre <br />and the other kids started to file <br />into the narrow aisle, into a lobby <br />of faded purple splendor, into the last <br />Saturday in August before she moved away. <br />I never wanted to move again, but suddenly <br />we were being lifted toward the sidewalk <br />in a crush of bodies, blinking, shy, <br />unprepared for the ringing familiar voices <br />and the harsh glare of sunlight, the brightness <br />of an afternoon that left us gripping <br />each other’s hands, trembling and changed.<br /><br />Edward Hirsch<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-skokie-theater/
