gilded age (purity I)

Part of a three-work collection of poetry, "purity"

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i have not been clean since

hazy sugared days of spring in which

my knees were dusted by

playground gravel and 

my hands were sticky with

mud and melted candy and youngness

 

i was not clean when

april gusts sent you fluttering down in

a procession of silver-maple-helicopters

fallen angels dancing towards an oil spill

glistening as if it were a tear-heavy eye

desperately seeking winged life to suffocate

 

i am not clean so

continue lying in my room

skillful metalsmithing hands

capturing the afternoon sun

turning it into gold leaf and

pressing it to my skin

hiding the corrosive ugliness i bear,

gilded age of eighteen.