Partly Cloudy (5 page)

 

She was carrying the roses I gave her,
Petals unhooking and dropping to the ground.
She hugged me, smiled, and said, “Hi, ugly.”
This was how much we loved each other.

 

Later, when I walked around campus,
I saw petals everywhere,
My girlfriend so busy showing her friends
The flowers I bought her.

 

I had to smile. She was in love with me,
And those poor roses, just stems at the end
Of the day, blew across the schoolyard
Like kisses.

She showed me the scar on her wrist
And said, “It doesn't hurt
Anymore.” I swallowed my fear
And asked how she got it.

 

She pulled her hair behind
Her ears and whispered, “An accident.”
That was it, no more.
It was after school. We were playing
Volleyball in cold weather.
Our breath hung in the air
And our wrists stung
When we slugged the ball.

 

I couldn't get it out of my mind.
The scar was shaped like a smile—
But I knew it was nothing
To laugh about.

I'm exhausted from being in love—
My fingers are blistered from writing

 

You e-mail love letters.
I hurt from carrying a huge torch in my heart.

 

No one told me love would be such hard work.
Every day I put on clean clothes, floss my teeth,

 

And breathe on mirrors to check my breath.
And for our first-month anniversary

 

I memorized a poem and worked three hours
In my neighbor's yard—with the money earned

 

I bought you flowers that I held before you,
All the while reciting a Sylvia Plath poem.

 

I have my doubts now.
I've lost weight and my lips are chapped

 

From saying how much I love you.
I have rings under my eyes

 

And my bottle of cologne is half-empty.
I'm a little more than half-empty.

 

My ride, as you know, is a bicycle.
Next time, when we're going somewhere,

 

Could I sit on the bar and you pedal?
I'm exhausted from being in love.

A shooting star burns across the sky,
And I make a wish

 

On its brief earthly descent.
I wish you were here

 

Next to me on this tractor in the field.
I helped Dad from a little

 

Before sunup, dropped coins
Of sweat in the cornfields,

 

And then washed the car—
Mom had some church thing

 

To do and Dad went along.
Alone, in my aching bones,

 

I ate dinner and then went outside
To feel the evening wind.

 

You're on my mind. I think of you,
The city girl, and whether

 

You really love me. At the sight
Of another shooting star,

 

I wish you would suddenly
Appear from the tall stalks

 

Of corn, a blanket on your arm.
I watch the stalks, a breath

 

Of evening wind rustling the leaves.
I wait nearly an hour

 

At the wheel of a tractor,
Tired as a horse.

 

The shooting stars fall
All over the county

 

And boys like me, seated
On tractors, truck fenders, porches,

 

Are wishing on stars—
I'm hoping that somewhere,

 

Perhaps at our place,
A certain girl will part

 

The tall stalks of corn
And throw a blanket

 

Into the air. Where it spreads
Is where this girl will lie

 

With her country boy.

If you love me,
Meet me in front of the theater,
Where the movie
Is
Hug Me If You Mean It.
Let's not go in.
Just meet me there,
And we'll play the parts
In that movie we'll never see.
I'll be the boy, you the girl,
And the world—traffic and cars
Hurling through red lights—
Our backdrop. We'll play our
Parts for free. I'll kiss you,
And the director inside me will shout,
“Cut—hug and let's do it again.”
There will be stars in my eyes,
Stars in yours. I like perfection.
I'll do it until I get it right.

Not much of a hill
As hills go—and it looks like

 

Ants are trying to claim it
And haul its leaves underground.

 

How do they do this? Only nature knows.
We step back to give them room.

 

Thousands of ants are everywhere,
With bits of lumber in their jaws.

 

You and I watch them
And their marvelous capacity for work.

 

Then we go in search
Of another hill where we can spread

 

A quilt. I want to lie at your side
And pluck your hair like a harp.

 

I know there's music inside you,
A song, some lyrics that speak my name.

 

It's my nature to love you.
You are beauty—flower, leaf, sunshine.

 

Let the ants have every small hill
But this one. We'll lie on the quilt

 

And listen to the wind with its rumors
Of love and longing.

 

Though I get tongue-tied,
Let love now speak our names.

As an act of kindness I steer the mower
Around bees on our lawn.
Today, I don't want to hurt anyone,
And least of all, those making honey.

 

My stepfather watches from the porch.
He points and says over the noise,
“Buddy, you missed over there.”

 

I'll go back,
But first I'll let the bees move
To another part of the lawn,
Or move to the flowering geranium.

 

I stop my mower, wipe my face.
I notice the kindness of bees.
They each drink from a flower
And let the next bee drink.
There's no shoving like students
In school, all of us at the fountain,
Wetting our lips, for we have a lot to say.

 

I'm thinking of you, love,
And the blades that may cut us down.
The world is cruel. People have knives,
And even their teeth look like knives.

 

What we could learn from the bees.

Gary Soto
's first book for young readers,
Baseball in April and Other Stories,
won the California Library Association's Beatty Award and was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. He has since published short stories, plays, poetry, and many novels, including
The Afterlife,
which was named a Booklist Editors' Choice and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. He lives in Berkeley, California.

 

www.garysoto.com