teenage eternal moments
Frozen in my tracks
in the grocery store parking lot
(Why was I there? What do you shop for at 16?)
your absent presence pinned my feet to the asphalt,
just for a second,
and without knowing I knew everything.
Much later, in a different city altogether,
fiddling with the stubby pencil and welcome card
from the back of the pew I hid behind,
writing some joke to disrupt my brother's similar inattention,
I caught the glare from the smug, shriveled matron in the choir,
and felt her judgment on my smirks and claustrophobia
(and most likely on my haircut).
My eye caught hers and didn't shrink back because out of nowhere
I knew without knowing that you laughed at my joke.