Adam Fell

                        No one likes their first cigarette.
     Any chaperone could tell you that. Any
     chaperone could tell you: our peephole
     hearts all look out onto the same midnight
     motel hallway, where two post-prom kids
     forever fumble with each others zipper’s
     for the first time. Any chaperone could tell
     you: what happens after that is always
     up to you. Maybe the boy forever cums
     he-thinks-too-soon upon the shy girl’s hand.
     Their laughter warming the plaster of our cold
     rooms. Their tenderness slipping beneath
     our doors in unsealed envelopes. Or maybe
     instead of forever laughter, forever lenience,
     there is forever shattering. Maybe the boy
     cartwheels away ashamed to smudge his
     bloody knuckles moptwirl pink against the
     khaki bathroom stall. A boy’s first stab
     at DMZ. A boy’s first stab at quarantine.
     What if his mother taught him this? What if
     his father? What if he never speaks to the girl
     again, never knows the girl understands for-
     ever and forever thinks it cute?  Or, maybe,
     instead of forever shattering, forever shame,
     the kids forever and always incandesce into song:
     I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord.
     I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life.