Patterns

My high school friends watched me tie the knot
one Saturday between school days
I was sixteen
Late one night at a party thrown
by the employees of a local Taco Bell,
I was sneaking around
behind my parents’ backs
The first taste of freedom that summer unbinding
Fucking for a blind moment too long
on a rubber that traveled in my velcro wallet,
just a few salad days too long
With a girl who needed anything I could give her,
and I needed someone too
Somehow discussions turn in circles
How could we be parents?
It wasn’t a question
Her home broken into pieces before we met
She told her aunt and her uncle, they said
the only logical choice was to abort,
“You’d never even have to tell his folks”
But how could she give up something she’d always needed?
My mother had tears in her eyes for three straight days
She’d never known what teens would do
My father was silent, he said nothing
They were good Christians and what else could they do?
They offered us one choice,
it was their help for our matrimony
And there it was,
a sixteen and seventeen year-old,
with my shaved head and her nose rings,
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