People who know you now vs. people who knew you then

Coach Tinsley is new this year and doesn’t know

that I used to fly.

Coach Young retired and I’m glad,

otherwise she’d be at my locker asking me why the hell

I’m not running track this year. I don’t think I could tell her.

I don’t think I could tell her about the pair of shorts

crumpled in the bottom of my locker

like a corpse.

Tinsley seems nice enough but he doesn’t know

that the girl he sees catching the bus

has two bloody stumps under her shirt

where wings used to be

and when he makes jokes about running

the stumps tingle, phantom limbs.

He doesn’t know that he’s talking to a ghost

that when he jokes about running

he’s rubbing salt into a wound

he can’t see.

Sometimes I pass people I used to run with—

we were never quite friends: the seniors I called close

all graduated—but I know they recognize me:

Jacob Wheeler

Tierra Pryor

Tabitha Renfro, eyes like diamonds

sharp and hard.

In her mind

who I am now

doesn’t quite square

with the girl she ran 4x4 with,

but to look closer

would mean

just that: coming close,

and she’s afraid

what I am

is infectious.