VALENTINE BOXERS

My first pair of boxer shorts were blue with red hearts.

I didn’t choose that pattern, but they were on sale

and my best friend said,

if you’re going to be with women you need to start wearing boxers,

a rule I know to be bogus, but she was very convincing.

.

I felt sexy in boxers, longed I’d worn them all along.

Doning them, I no longer felt an uncomfy fraud

beneath my corduroys.

.

As it was when I first felt the rain on my head after shaving it,

when I pulled on the blue boxers adorned with red hearts

my whole being beamed a smile

as if an impossible miracle had taken place,

one I’d waited on my whole life.

.

I wouldn’t have picked that pattern for my first pair of boxers

but they were on sale, and red hearts on a blue background

I surmise now

was as good as my real heart set free,

multiplying in the vast sky to welcome witness.