The Lost by Dorianne Laux

We all called him Chris, but the night I first slept with him

he decided to insist on Christopher. I was the first

to call him, always, by his given name.

He was just one of those back-then boys, one of many

I was determined to possess with that swift, wistful

delirium of the casual romantic. Transient sweetness.

You could say I loved him, the way I loved every boy

I ever slept with, loved them just for being alive,

for being so different from me, for having beards

they shaved so carefully, the blade gliding over

the Adam's apple as it climbed high in their throats,

telling me where to find a cigarette or pair of socks.

I loved that they had their own private thoughts, thick

blue veins in their necks and cocks, branching veins

I traced up the backs of their calves, their hands

when they hung at their sides. I loved the delicate smells

that rose from the crotches of their jeans,

their crumpled T-shirts. I cherished the nipple-like moles,

the star and moon-shaped scars. I loved how they came,

quick and hard or slow as a sax solo, rolling away

with a moan, and later how they lingered in the shower,

capturing the water in one hand and splashing it

under an arm. I adored their husky voices and the stories

they told in short bursts or all-night long installments:

The brother and the bird story. The mother's breast

and the cancer story. I treasured their perfection,

the peach-riven seam that traveled

from the base of their skulls down their long

freckled backs, then disappeared in the darkness,

that when separated, became the morning light

between their legs. I was amazed

by the sheer variety of them, their velocity and vanity,

like carved statues in the rose garden

near the history museam. I studied

the infinite details of difference,

the initimate gesture, the prideful stance.

So when Christopher's boss called me

instead of his twin brother or the mother

who had made him, I was surprised

how simply I got in my car and drove

through traffic like a factory wife,

walked the maze of white hallways

until I found him, and as if i would love him

my whole life, sat without words and held

his unbandaged hand. And I was the one

who returned again to help him begin

to believe it, to unwrap the yellowed gauze,

hold his wrist and look straight at it, then dip

the torn stumps of his fingers into the whirlpool bath,

the saline smell tising like the beginning of a world.

I was surprised by his eyes, each b;ack lash damp, the lids

swollen and open, trusting I could beat the damage.

I saw how he was made of flesh and blood and how

I had to do it. He made me believe I was the only one

who could, the last to have touched him whole.