Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

Quigley

He is tall.
A sophomore in school
wearing Chacos and Hawaiian shorts,
walking Allie in the sun.
I remember when he first moved
to this neighborhood,
a boy-child,
a thin wiry nothing,
blowing about on his bike
incapable of calm.
Now his palms are bigger than mine.
So are his feet.
He is six foot tall
and dreams of girls
late at night
in his parent’s basement.
He mows the lawn without a shirt,
and plays the bagpipes on the hill
for the entire neighborhood to hear.
He used to be the squirrely one,
the one who got away with everything,
the coveted boy in a family of three girls.
Now,
he is like a Rorschach blot,
spreading across the paper
in every direction,
taking up as much room as possible,
unsure how far he can reach
before he falls off the page.