by Corey Ruzicano

my mother’s pigs take a flintstone vitamin every morning with breakfast

that’s more than i do

 

i think of the days nursemaids poured out cod liver oil

each morning

for their charges

a spoonful every day

and you’ll be strong as a viking 

swallowing down seeds of hardness

flint

stone

growing men of boys

with cod liver oil

and muscle

and grit

 

when did the story start

that boys must be boys

must be boys

must be brutes

must be hard

must be set strong like a viking

 

who wrote the first words

who tread the first path

and who followed

whose footsteps wore the path so deep

no one can imagine an alternative

 

the way I have grown

so used to the Manhattan sidewalk

I forget we are an island

we are

a small thumb of land

surrounded by sea

 

I think of the boys I have loved

too soft for this world

too soft to survive without growing armor

 

I look up and see

gulls

white and full breasted

in the blue sky above Canal Street

 

we are an island

we are a ship at sea

we are headed somewhere 

we must imagine a new map

and then we must steer