I saw him in the supermarket
hovering above the potato chips
and candy bars

blue trunks exposing
smooth thighs
beginning to fill out

mouth
moist and parted
ablaze with ripeness

of fourteen years

he stood submerging
the needs
of that flagrant mouth

in candy and chips
unnatural substitutes
for what at this age

nature
obviously intended
something so pansexual

that all the taboos press
on him
and on the onlooker

a mask of casual make-believe
of bland indifference
so that nothing disturbs the surface

of the supermarket
on this hot Indian summer
afternoon