Boy Into Polished Concrete

Boy into Polished Concrete Though galaxies burn all day, spinning in the sky, the sun blots them out. The boy’s desk sits under his elbows. The window dims and flashes, the clouds crossing all the stars, his pencil crossing the bar of the t that tells: what is it? Cat. Bat. Rat. In his head, a stutter. The test dissolves into static, but the question persists. The sun whitens his words to nothing, a bar across the paper, across his forearm, so bright each hair disappears, his arm lit exactly like everything else. The light hooks him like a leaping fish. The floor catches him by the shoulder. At home, in the dark, everything moves. He demands a tight tuck from his father, his sheets taut as a chalk-line below his chin. Clamped in, he knows where he ends, senses this is how to see what matters. Stop-motion for clarity. Everything held quiet. Above his house, the stars quit their wavering. The boy loves his own hard edges, how his skin makes him different, how whatever isn’t him wheels free. Just yesterday his mother dropped the milk. The air held it up enough to see how it fell, both white arms spiraling out.