“19″

Said only once,
his age executes anticipation
as if warm air through winter’s door.

Celebrate air!
and five Haitian teens are crowding
a Florida hotel with their libidos, unwieldy.

They sing,
“We are everything, undone” instead
of that birthday muck, an eager ruckus for sure.

All us boys
bring ideas and string, boxes
nailed with wire mesh for trapping squirrels.

To fix an engine,
a man might turn it off, but boys will run
and suck lungs full of inexhaustible ardor.

Then, it is all
lamentation only later,
with the accident of chest hair, wrinkly fingers, age -

“We are everything,
undone!” he repeats until out
of breath, until exhausting his own body.