“When I Am a Teenage Boy” by Erin Belieu

I am like my parents’ house, in a state

of constant remodel we can ill afford,

the noise behind a tarp producing little more

 

than dust. But the footprint must change

despite great expense. Large parts

need to move for the sake of flow. I learn

 

the trick is to appear intact, though recently

the problem of my torso is introduced.

My mother says I’ve always been a little

 

Jew around the waist. She had specific

hopes, shelled out for the stag tuxedo suit,

sent me for cotillion lessons. Mind like

 

a boardwalk jewelry store, heyday 1962,

she wears her hostess gown in the kitchen

while I creak along with the crock pot

 

pulverizing our Sunday stew. Because

I’m an only, she put a TV in my room

for company. It’s a solid business, taping cable

 

porn to VHS. But when I’m caught extorting

the gym coach, meds are discussed at school.

My mother says we don’t do meds,

 

my dad and me. And I’m not caught often.

Who would I be without this brain that itches

like the dragonflies I hose from the pool’s filter?

 

Instead, I take myself in hand. I buy a trench

with birthday money sent by a childless aunt

we thought dead years ago. We don’t use

 

the word “lesbian” because my mother says,

Who says that sort of thing? I perform my coat

darkly in a graveyard split by an interstate where

 

our housekeeper’s son is housed. Here, I feel most

vivid, futurely, Peter Parker praying for his spider.

Oh, I am replete with plans. I’ll be like that prince

 

In the novel I didn’t read in English class.

I don’t finish books, but I get the gist-

some sad lady who offs herself by train. Ballroom

 

Unpronounceable Russians suffering. Blah blah.

But that guy Stiva eating his sausages? Someday

I’ll have a faithful servant, too. Or at least a wife.

 

I fear I’ll always be a little piggy in the middle,

but that grease I’ll lick from my fingers,

it tastes like everything now.