CHRIS BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

Chris, 28 years old
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, $30

As I learned early
to draw the dollar -
an 's', 
some numbers
and two vertical lines,
with Chris it was simple

It was like he had rehearsed.
His small hands
unfastening my button fly,
reciting a four times table
by rote.

We met no more than seven times
according to my diary
when he 'disappeared.'

Afterwards, my journeys west
grew short. I felt
his breath behind my neck the one time
in the car and saw his shadow
in the parking lot

lengthening towards me.

GIRLS I KISSED AT CAMM'S SCHOOL (A KISS AND TELL)

for JB

Kathryn Walker was my first in nursery
and again in reception, and once
in year three under a table on maths
rotation and three times in Lincoln.

I kissed Joanne Bainbridge at the same
time my sister and Andrew Bainbridge
were marrying each other via
a shoebox of plastic rings and letters.

Jessica Baines, Gemma Dodd, were both
girls I tongued under the weeping
willow in year five and Jessica Baines
invited me to her 10th birthday party.

Finally, Jenny, I think, at least once,
and Katrina Cooper and Rebecca Wright
and Sarah Bailey twice.

IT WAS

for H B–W

It was failing at maths, sweating outside
exam halls, aching for sex, a faceful
of acne that wrecked my fumbling attempts
at boys. Some idiot said, your school days
are the best of your life. It was blind fear
in corridors and changing rooms, hunted
by richer, fitter, prettier kids, who
had the right brand of shoe and designer
jackets. It was the friendships I fostered
among those shadows I hid inside. It was
playing it straight for the gallery, while
dancing another life under lasers
and spotlights. It was Cossack and Freedom,
a lie that I told. It was my first kiss,
the first time I shaved and wore cologne.

EVENTS LEADING TO A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

for JA

Once you have recognised the director miscast you

as Atlas in the school production of Fiddler, it is hard

to escape the burden of carrying the entire scenery

around on your back. I was holding billboards slapped

with paint by the Y9's, bits of fence used to disguise

where they'd missed and the MDF shone through.

The subject matter was heavy. Some Russian Jews

had been thrown out of their homes like rocks

chucked in the sea and I had to keep turning this way

and that to be certain the actors said their lines

in the right places. These were my responsibilities

that I shouldered alone. My parents were touring

in productions of Don't Look Back and Les Mis respectively.

I was cutting my teeth in the world of theatre,

though as I grew old I was typecast as Reb Nachum, the beggar

whom nobody listened to, who did not sing or dance,

just said a few lines to keep the whole thing moving.

This was who I was playing when I quit acting.