Joanna Gilman Hyde

The Hawk Kitchen 6:50pm

I remember those dirty-necked boys

— what they tried with me —

the one in 4th grade

who put dimes in my desk

until he confessed

& breathed his lips

across my neck —

the one on my father’s farm

who shifted in the bed

of an old pick up

to the left of me on an extracted truck seat

under a discarded printed comforter

I distinctly remember —

he tried nuzzling me:

“What are you doing?”

“Giving you a hickey.”

“What? — I’m only eleven!”