Middle School

He had the hopeful, scruffy-pink look that
you see in cardinals sometimes when they're male
and not quite certain of it: earnest stare,

the shoulders burgeoning with baby fat
yet big as wheelbarrows.  Like cardinals
stuck in that chubby nestling phase, they glare,                 

convinced you're laughing at them – and you are,
and they can't stop you. Not to mention hair
in fuzzy clumps like feathers growing in,

and something tickles (poke it). Connoisseurs
of adolescent birds will recognize
the earnestly flapping: “these are useless” (wings)
“and I don't know how anybody flies...”

Kathryn Jacobs