Jennifer L Freed

Axe ®

You can’t tell me
more, but you want me to see
if I can build you a poem
on the scent
of a young man’s body-spray.

I won’t ask
for concrete.

We’ve worked
for this
intimacy—
  me, letting go
                         of my need
                                   to know,

               you, trusting me
                         to let you
                                   be.

What I’ve gleaned
is that you were in middle school.

That the boy was from our town.

That you had to sit near him
all through tenth grade.

And now,
from your college dorm,
you text me:

               Of all the things in the world
               for me to be afraid of,
               this scent…

I imagine
your breath, catching and
catching.

               A passing waft of a boy’s body-spray, cutting
               through time, and you
                         caught off guard,
                        felled,
                        falling
                                   into a well.

               You, talking yourself back (get a grip, get a grip),
               pulling yourself up,
                         hand
                                    over hand.

JENNIFER L FREED’s poetry appears/is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Rust and Moth, West Trestle Review, and others. Her first full-length collection, When Light Shifts, was a 2022 finalist for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize. Awards include the 2022 Frank O’Hara Prize and the 2020 Samuel Washington Allen Prize. She teaches writing programs from Massachusetts.

Jennifer L Freed

Axe ®

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