Cadet
My voice, breaking, breaks
into a soulful tenor; I can still sing,
sway crowds someday. My clothes,
rich natural fabrics, preclude
the question whether one must be
messy to be considered masculine
enough. My parents are benign
abstractions, mainframes
with hugging applications, seldom used;
house robots and a trust look after me.
The school to which I descend at noon
is a quiet fastness where I
confound my tutors and swiftly
ascend through all data, creating
theorems and masterpieces at recess.
For me the world-city was condensed
into a village, gentrified, myself
the gentry. And as I stroll Main Street,
monsters, pederasts, priests,
Bad Men shuffle by in chains,
electronically herded and prodded.
It doesn’t matter if their eyes are lowered
in shame or fear of pain; they won’t be back.
Knots of children whom I save,
continually, stop and stare,
knowing that if they dare
resent me, screens will descend, on which
they will be the starved coyote,
the cat the mouse forever hunts. Mostly
they don’t; they invite me, formally, to play.
I smile as if uncertain what that means.
A blonde on the fast track
to cheerleader hands me a flower.
I carry it into the diner
where I have my after-school snack
and check and send messages. The Patrol,
after all, ignored requirements,
age, height, to use me in dangerous orbits;
the least I can do is stay in touch.
Adoring, silent, awed
old people at the counter wonder
what lonely mission I’ll be on. I’d better
finish my shake and suit up …
Puberty attacks in twenty minutes.
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