On the First Three Days of Being in Love, Age 17.

He
is the one buried in her furtive glance as she swipes three grapes
from the plate being marched to the dinner table
and it is his voice that echoes with each drip of the faucet
into the metal mixing bowl,
plink plink like tinny elevator music, punctuating the conversation with
such measured presence.
Today she finds his smile on fifteen street corners;
because every idle pedestrian knows his name
(and the secret weight of his hand on hers)
and they each wink to her
in silent confidence: yes, yes, yes.
It should be no surprise, then,
when he threads himself through the stubborn
air-conditioning vents of her car
(tickling the secret arcs of her calves)
and into the tangles of her morning-tossed hair, and oh—!
even now, his face appears
impressed into the pattern
of crumbs on her plate after Sunday morning waffles,
bobbing in a slick of syrup.
He waits patiently,
waits to be speared and devoured;
so small and so hungry.