Page 55 of The Black Flamingo

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to gay guys in the area.

I arrange to meet a guy

called Alex after school.

He sends me a photo.

He looks friendly:

a big smile, white teeth,

blue eyes, a bit pink in the face.

He says I can’t come

to his place but he knows

somewhere we can go.

We’re kneeling on a patch of

grass between two graves, kissing

with tongues, our mouths dry

from the spliff we just smoked.

My first spliff, my first proper kiss.

Alex said he’s nineteen but he looks older.

Maybe it’s his gray suit, the jacket

hanging on one gravestone,

my black school blazer on the other.

Maybe it’s his stubble—he was clean-

shaven in his photo.

Alex has his hand on the small of my back.

It feels like the only thing holding me upright.

He stops. “Do you do poppers?”

I close my eyes and imagine

tiny plastic cannons about to be pulled,

balloons about to drop from the ceiling

and my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

birthday cake from when I turned six.

I’m high on weed, about to lose

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