like long sticks from all directions

no way to time it,

to be ready,

they poke

and push and punch

and still their words are coming

I can hear my own breath,

see blood on my jacket,

my bike, twisted

on the pavement.

Between breaths

I look in the distance for an adult,

someone who might

be able to stop all of this.

I think it’s over    until            that last kick

comes right into my stomach

the air squeezed out of me,

my head going back and back

down into the dirt,

until I can see him standing over me,

the great herons diving,

the muffled sound of bikes riding away

knowing that I’m not hurt bad enough to be dead

but knowing what death might feel like

if I just lay there long enough.

Somewhere in San Francisco

miles away from here

my parents are selling dresses

or looking at paintings.

I make it to Pick’s house,

find the hidden key

beneath the loose board.

I thought Pick would be there,

but he’s not.

I shower.

I put ice on my body.

I find a bed.

I hide the bruises.

I hide them from everyone

inside all my extra skin.

Manhood

One night, my father talks

to me about my bar mitzvah.

It’s about becoming a man, Ari,

taking responsibility,

standing up for yourself.

When he says this,

I almost find the courage

to tell him about what happened

on the bike path. But I don’t

think he would understand.

After all, I didn’t stand up

for myself, at least,

not the way he means.

He wants me to fight

back with fists.

I don’t know if I want

to stand up for myself

in that way.

Why does being a man mean

I have to hurt someone else?

A long time ago

in Brooklyn,

at my grandparents’ house,

we played tag

on the street outside

the brownstone.

In the middle of the game,

we stopped, something happened.

An older boy held a dragonfly

against the cement,

fingers pressed

on its thorax

and forewings.

It vibrated

beneath the sun.

Another older boy

held a magnifying glass

above its tail.

The lens collected the sun

from the asphalt.

The dragonfly searched

with 30,000 facets

of its compound eye

over the reaches of

its territory

its green wetland

a world away.

But then these older kids

crushed the dragonfly to the ground,

got on their bikes

and came after us instead.

They took our toys,

pushed us down,

even pulled the girls’ hair.

We went upstairs

to tell the fathers.

My father took

a long wooden spoon

from the kitchen,

put it into my palm.

Here, he said,

stick this in his spokes.

We went back

armed with spoons and dowels,

golf clubs and two umbrellas,

and we thrust them into the spokes

of the tires

like pistons firing

into wiry chaos

until we got one.

But in that moment