A GREENHOUSE VENTURE

A younger one devours
French bread
standing there
by the greenhouse
near the playground
of slides and see saw
with a toothpick
in hand
flexing his smile and muscle
watches me reaching
on the porch for a peach
and D.H. Lawrence
not knowing what is mine
or his business
near the Blue Hills and woods
with a ruddy way to dip
and dive in Houghton's pond
when he was nineteen
a first light overcomes us
as he combs his hair
in the careless and callous
plunge into the water
here was a tourist guide
and a life guard
soon gasping for breath
only the freshman swimmer
made the purer drift of wood
float from me that saved
his raw body form
from the stranger of mouth
to mouth life from death
over the purple solitude
of a bard's bitter adolescence
he cannot fade
until the sun enfolds us
in the fresh miraculous air
of a blanked out memory.