Florida Again by Randall Mann

Florida Again

             I forgave myself for having had a youth.

                                                    —Thom Gunn 

At the Fashion

Square mall,

back

of Waldenbooks, 

I saw my younger self

haunting

the magazine rack.

Ripping out pages 

of Blueboy,

tucking them 

in a Trapper

Keeper. 

Turn back.

His eyes met mine,

animal

and brittle, 

a form

of gratitude

that a man

kept his stare. 

Any man.

I half-smiled

some admission,

and though 

he couldn’t

see it coming,

I excused him

his acid jeans; 

two Swatch

watches,

two guards.

He, I, 

must have been

nineteen:

sex was “safer”

then— 

scribbles

on the mall

men’s room stall;

malaise 

of saxophone

and PSAs.

How

did I 

even

learn how to live

in 1991?

Landlocked, 

cock-blocked,

Spanish moss

festering.

I forgive him.