Religion

	The Red Devil lives in our house
	and if you're bad he'll eat you.
Ken was eight, and smart.
I adored him for the brother I did not have.

From the kitchen Ken's mother called,
	Wash your hands for dinner.
Ken opened a door beside the grandfather clock.
I peered under his arm, 
holding his pants leg with one hand, 
the other searching backwards for escape.
Dark stairs crawled from the bottom of the world; 
eyes wide before a licking red tongue grinning
behind gapping, black teeth.
choking dust pushed inside my nostrils.
I promised from a gasp of fear under the smell of Hell,
I would never lie or cheat or steal.

I don't remember when I grew to know 
that Ken's Red Devil
was the furnace in his cellar.


First Kiss

Morel was cute.
No one had to tell me.
We played Hide and Seek at the edge of day
when evening arrives so quickly street lights surprise
and the smallest scatter before they're called 
and scolded for forgetting to come home before dark.

Deserted, like a wild creature in tall grass,
I lingered behind the cedars in a corner of the yard.
From the shadows, a kiss
on my left cheek,
then footsteps, fast, across the street,
to a back door, slammed shut.
Morel did not say a word the next day, 
or ever.

Was my taste not as he anticipated?