Jake
I didn’t step to him the way you would have.
Caught the D train at Atlantic & out of nowhere
dude just lowers his shoulder into me. I mean
just lays right into my chest & rocks me proper
hard like the gap between train & platform edge
was a line of scrimmage he blew thru before
the snap, the steel trickle & click of closing doors
like ringside ropes he straight rushed thru
like a prophecy of violence itching for practice.
I didn’t step to him the way you would have,
the way we used to, the way all our older
brothers taught us the nights they strapped us
to cheap lawn chairs in the side lot & forced warm
racks of discount down our throats until we choked,
blue collar holy water streaming down our faces
as they laughed & talked shit, flinging
their varsity fists into our kidneys & ribs
until we surrendered & squealed
like the thirteen-year-olds we were.
& as I stood on that train staring at this
lanky stick figure sketch storm of a man
all I could think about was the match-lit look in your eye
that night on the T platform back home in Boston
when you, two months shy of seventeen, stood
toe-to-toe with the scariest, meanest drunk I’d seen.
At least twice our age & half a century heavier,
cracked face stitched with scars & faded ink
he probably had us pegged as perfect marks
but you walked up to him smooth as trick or treat
& smiled at him cold & easy, your blue eyes burning
with a fire I’d never seen as you asked him stone-cold casual
which hospital he wanted to wake up in & I remember
in that moment feeling scared for him & for the first time
scared of you. I watched his eyes twitch & shift
nervously & slowly fall as all the strength seemed
to drain from his body & I had to turn my face
to pull my Sox cap lower over my eyes
so you wouldn’t see me cry.
Tas Tobey is a writer pursuing an MFA in poetry at the City College of New York. His chapbook Rough Cut was selected by Alicia Mountain as the winner of the 2023 Flume Press Chapbook Contest and his poems have appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Eunoia Review, and The Carson Review. His criticism and journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and Complex.