in six months, you’ll return, smirking,
sheepish, as if there’d been some mistake,
as if the judge misread
the depth of your white,
but it’s okay, you’ll say, you forgive him,
benevolent, kindly,
large watch on your wrist, the one
your father gave you, waterproof,
at your second swim meet
you learned that gifts comes easy,
that you are right, sentence-proof,
impervious to 200 meters,
that men who look like you will bend
facts to match your sheepish smirk,
that you didn’t, not really, rape that girl,
or she wanted it
or she didn’t say no
or you wanted it
(you wanted it)
the world distorting to fit your frame
the world your funhouse mirror,
at every turn, your pallor
a black hole that ensnares us all,

and when you go to jail
it’ll be like that summer
in Montauk, when you kissed cousins,
smoked cigarettes for the first time,
stole from pop’s liquor cabinet,
porn mags buried by the fire pit,
your first deodorant—such memories,
precious, yours, everything yours—
and some girl drowned in a lake,
falling from the canoe,
expensive whisky swirling in your palm,
the crooning of loons,
laid out on pine needled floors
under the white moon,
(your victim picked pine needles
from her hair)

you might even meet a black person,
a true criminal, the kind from the news
and you’ll come back bad—
snapping your fingers,
wearing leather with straps,
always singing a tune,
things will never get so bad
you’ll need to stop singing,
though you might lose your appetite
for pizza bagels.

when your father told you,
held you, baby, in his arms,
you can do anything
with your life
he meant
you can do anything
with her life
because you’re a good kid,
because stories, once told, might
never be untold, because
the language spoken by cupboards
you slammed as a teen
means the world bows to you

in six months we’ll forget about you,
a vague, awkward, nice guy, who slipped up,
like when you took the fiver
from grandma’s purse and she tsk’ed
and slipped you a caramel
because boys will be boys:
roughhousing, horseplay, noogies,
body odor, white socks,
backflips off the pier,
bong rips at noon,
and raping unconscious girls
behind dumpsters

safe travels, Brock—
the world awaits you,
open-armed.