Ilex glabra
Between Billy Graham’s ’76 Crusade reruns
and the false summer of February, when Effie’s wrapped up
and knocked out in her old lean-back chair
we ease out the rag-plugged door,
lose our shirts, hit the sideyard hard. I think I pushed him.
Shrub bush, older than me at the corner of the yard,
stole dark berries in our hands, pressed flat purple in palms.
Hands on our own chests, the other’s on our backs,
we paint each other as brother bohemians, raiders together!
Liberate our treehouse, barely a platform but it’s ours.
It’s now. It’s love in Carolina inkberry.
