Summer is about to crash-land into another school year. The campout we’ve put off all June, all July, all August, at last to happen at Bobby’s place. Just out of town and on the river. An acre of woods between his house and the pier. A spot with a firepit and privacy.

Near midnight, Mitch suggests we strip down and cannonball off the end of the pier. We need no coaxing—Last one in’s a rat fink! Splashing, dunking, swimming. Half an hour later we sprawl across the pier on our backs, gazing and pointing at constellations, when Mike asks the question we all want to ask: Where’s your pubes, Bobby? Not that any of us is bushy down there, but Bobby doesn’t have a hint of hair. He responds, My people don’t have much body hair. You know, half Injun. But none of us knew—or suspected. Mitch Bianchi is way darker than Bobby.

We listen to the drone of insects in silence. I recall watching Bobby start a fire without matches. I thought he’d learned it in Scouts, but now ...

long walk
out of darkness
all we don’t see

Scott Wiggerman

A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Albuquerque poet Scott Wiggerman is the author of three books of poetry, Leaf and Beak: Sonnets (Purple Flag), Presence (Pecan Grove Press), and Vegetables and Other Relationships (Plain View Press); and the editor of several volumes, including Wingbeats I and II: Exercises & Practice in Poetry (Dos Gatos Press, of which he is co-founder with David Meischen).

In recent years, Scott’s love of poetic form has moved largely into Japanese forms, and haiku and art have become more central to his work as an artist of both the page and canvas. For more, see Scott Wiggerman’s Poetry Pages.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Wiggerman’s introduction to his curated collection of haiku on the theme of the LGBTQIA+ experience, for National Poetry Month: Haiku of the Day, April 2023; scroll down a bit to access the slide show for April

⚡ The Story of Fire, haibun by Wiggerman in Issue 16 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (January 2023)