When you’re sixteen the sky
goes all the way to Singapore.
It’s alive with purple stars,
blue alliances blazing, a girl
who might go down on you.
And if she won’t, the spaces
you perceive inside the corn
turn sexy with the possible,
then stretch toward Neptune
or Moline, Illinois, whichever
might be closer. You touch
the blankets, the bed-post,
the wall. In the next room
your sister speaks of nothing
on the telephone, of boys
whose fathers carry guns
and tip beers all afternoon.
This doesn’t matter. You are
braver; you are coming hard
into the world and unconcerned.
You are the one they’ll speak of
after summer thunderstorms,
after all the world grows still.

Carl Boon lives in Izmir, Turkey, where he teaches courses in American culture and literature at 9 Eylül University. His poems appear in dozens of magazines, most recently The Maine Review and The Hawaii Review. A 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee, Boon is currently editing a volume on the sublime in American cultural studies.