1/ Invitation

Fifteen

In yet another brand new town

School

house

Landscape

climate

Country

and so on

All new (to me

though also sort of old)

Soon to graduate from high school

Among yet one more horde of strangers

Including one I quickly

sadly madly love

I love HIM

And know HE cares, HE likes me

Like-likes me

Distinguishes me

Always seeks me out at school

Includes me in HIS in-group

Insists on it, that I must lunch with them

Despite the sour frowns of others

Mostly the girls, and one smart sulky boy

who've all been 'in' since nursery school

Still speak of in-group fights back then for teddy bears

Have not advanced that much, perhaps

in intervening dozen years

All keen to keep me — interloper — out

Away from teddies that are theirs by long-held rights

But HE insists, HE brings me 'in' and keeps me there

HE has the power

And — there it stops

HE stops, stops there

Could never figure why

No phone calls, no meetups

No walks, no study dates

No nothing from HIM outside school

And no invites to parties

The girls arrange those, every week

Ask each other, make all the plans

with honeyed glee in front of me

Announce my non-invited status to my face

So sweetly, saying I just wouldn't be at ease

among such old close friends

I'd just feel out of place

and so would not be asked

(so, am not being asked)

But then, one day, a semi-in, like me

a transplant boy from very far away

says he is being thrown a party

His trusting mom and dad, so cool with it,

are even going out that night

A Halloween-plus-big-deal-birthday bash

The semi-in invites me with the rest

Invites the whole in-group

And HE, at once, says . . . yes!

And so, of course, at once, do I

***