Boots

The news, then, was full of warnings

A child’s mitten
detached at the knuckle
found in a valley

Coyotes spotted
circling a tire swing
crowning the hill

where my brother
and I would often sled

Super Mario pajamas
underneath our coats

Sunglasses to dull
the light snow reflected

Once, the storm
got so thick, I wanted
to turn back

which he resisted
chanting Shut up shut up
you stupid faggot

He tried to go on without me
but I was still
part of him

Stubby bush with thorns
bordering the route uphill

He tried to make me push him
so he might soar higher

Then he called out to run
confirming the fear I had

but I stayed behind
to pet the neighbor’s dog
sniffing his empty boots

and watched him flee
fast, careful, as if walking
over hot embers

I remember, winters later,
carrying a lover’s boots
out of the room

we would undress in
safe from the season’s
slow white descent

which fell on my shoulders
like confetti or dandruff

as I trudged to his place,
soaked and wanting
to be naked

He was twice my age

He tied me to the bed
with his suede belt
and I liked it

The kind of pain
that melted, making
every limb glow

It was a story only I could
tell in order to become
my own person

Like the overblown fears
I carried or resisted
as a child

Like running barefoot
through fresh snow

Cole Barry's poems have appeared in Emerge, Hog River Press, and others. His work has been supported by the NYS Summer Writers Institute, and he edits poetry for Blue Moon Review. You can find him on Instagram @cole.barryy.