The Boy in the Middle
He lives, that is, in the middle
condo and dresses all in black.
A cute young thing of mystery.
So you’ve named him
“the boy in the middle.” Though
we’ve never spoken, we watch
him sometimes slipping off
to his car and if he has a lover
the evidence is slim. Still, like
a Hitchock film of old, you
like to spot him—stare and
declare his handsome pretense.
It’s as though we watched
someone we used
to be. He comes and goes,
a creature more intent
on vanishing before our very
eyes. And though he knows us
as two men who are old, we two
linger in our looks, not jealous
but celebratory in our own way
of things that change
and things that remain
and stay a mystery even now.
—Walter Holland
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Walter Holland, Ph.D., is the author of three books of poetry Circuit (2010), Transatlantic (2001), A Journal of the Plague Years: Poems 1979-1992 (1992) as well as a novel, The March (2011). His short stories have been published in Art and Understanding, Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly, and Rebel Yell, Some of his poetry credits include: Antioch Review, Art and Understanding, Barrow Street, Chiron Review, The Cream City Review, Found Object, Pegasus, Phoebe, and Poets for Life:76 Poets Respond to AIDS. He lives in New York City.