glimpse
on the pitch by my house the weekly game
of football there was one lad already
famous in our class for having snogged a girl
and still my friend despite the pull
of the pack mentality I always felt
outside of I had no skill could only
put my body in front of someone else
in hopes of slowing them for a moment
and this time it caused my friend to fall
and in the split second it took for him
to regain himself I saw slipped
from shorts and briefs his whole private self
though he hadn’t noticed still giggling
at my sudden prowess at defence
and after that there were other times crowding
into a friend’s bedroom me pretending
not to look as someone showed himself
to a girl and the emptiness that followed
nobody yet ready to do the things
that come after though it was still deliberate
and so different from that earlier time
the grass that glimpse of something that seemed
to be all potential tiny sapling
not yet seeding just another part
of our innocence fear and lust and shame
not yet ripened to full blush
what 1.6% of young men know
to get the body of their favourite sports star
they must starve themselves that the muscles
are there already if they could only
get at them that the thing to do is eat less
and replace meals with water so that they bloat
and then feel their insides flushing out
that the stomach will expand and shrink back
like a gas holder in a former
industrial town that once the body
has burned off all its fat it will start on muscle
that more exercise just gives more energy
for the body to eat itself alive
that they can forget what it’s like to stand
without feeling dizzy that their eyesight
can fail that their salad can be carried
in smaller and smaller tupperware boxes
that the doctor will be forced
to ban the gym will deliver his prognosis
that they will end up in the carpark of the doctors
with their mum saying imagine a child of mine malnourished
