I like to say
That after I discovered girls . . .
I think in fact
I ran away.

I can see in memory
A girl—11?—who lived next door
In the dim of the hallway
She was eager, we both intrigued!

Another girl – too good for me?
Kissing on a basement couch
On the Web now, divorced
A volunteer, her children, their families . . .

The lovely unraveling as I hold tight
In that hallway and down below
A sort of gray, with underwear
Curiosities wetting appetite.

And all the things that we’ve since done
My books, my drawings, poetry
And all the other boys and men
The other women to whom I’ve run . . .

Supposing back then we’d stopped and breathed
Then gone slowly all the way
Losing our little edgy selves
(Ah M—, ah S—, too briefly, wondrously!)

Moving on’s the main event
To nothing better, needing escape
Call it depravity breathless discovery
Of what we humans are all about.

— Poem (English only this time) and drawing by William Eaton