Now that we've ditched the adults what do we do?

Primo lets me climb into Uncle's truck first.
I will learn about intimacy before I even know
the word.

I will think -wrongly- he's all mine. Here
where my legs, clumsy at soccer, can rest. Take a load off.
Feet on grown up pedals.

I would kill for your skills, Primo,
the howl of grass under your studs.

Engine cold under the double-lidded hood, we'll stay parked.

My tongue vibrates against the roof of the mouth, a rotic motor. My teeth
a grille. I'm such a kid. Well I am a kid manning the three-spoke wheel.

Roaring

with want for a faraway place till Primo
shushes me. He undoes his belt.

It's a calendar Switzerland I'd want to visit.

What do we do now? I'm made of nosiness and noisiness.

Last week I was too shy to change into my striped swimsuit in front of Primo
but then the thing Uncle said,

boys should not be ashamed of being naked around other boys.

This pronounced by the man who always walks around in his underwear. Primo,

grabbing himself in his room. The swinging adultness he cupped,
the messy caterpillar pressed under his thumb.

Caterpillar, caterpillar, I'm still in my cocoon.

In the truck he unzips amid the whiffs of gasoline and ripe fruit.

I reach as if for a truth I can never get away from. A truck-truth. I become the hubcaps.
The flat bed covered with tarp in the back. Load up.

I've taken my -less-ness to the Pyrenees or is it the Alps. His face hovers
above my—what? The improbable, too young? I know:

A snail pastry that needs to stay in the oven a while longer.
He commands and I squeeze, speed up. Stop when-

ever he tells me to stop. Over the snowy peaks and slopes

no-one can hear us ditch the child.

Guillermo Filice Castro is an Argentine poet and photographer with several published chapbooks, including Mix-tape for a War (2018, Seven Kitchens Press). His work has been featured in journals such as Barrow Street, Brooklyn Rail, Columbia Poetry Review, The Mom Egg Review, and many more. He is also the recipient of a 2013 E-S-B fellowship from the Poetry Project in New York City. He currently resides in New Jersey with his partner of 16 years.