did you hear the one about the two teenaged boys
who loved each other by not eating
one would occasionally watch the other vomit
into the bathroom sink the other would wipe
the back of his pin-striped sleeve around the bowels of bone-
grey porcelain and ask forgiveness for cheating
which one of us was David kicking a football so hard
into a crowd of drunk dads or through the window
of the dirty butcher with his hairless legs beneath an apron
our mums buying us secret cans of strawberry slimfast for school
lunchtimes they were so supportive dinnertimes there were stacks
of pizza slices piled up next to the neighbourhood dogs
and o there was a girl
at the end of the street we both saw ourselves properly lost to
my god she was skinny a higher volley
of abandon than our bodies might ever hope to reach
