Summer Housing
-for Phil

I held your hand across my heart
(even in the back stairwell).
We were just kids passing through
how I missed you —
The gigantic weight of that arch
crushing. The Gateway?
My back shaped into it like a womb
containing a non-denominational prayer;
that chair in that shop window,
that night you carried me barefoot.
I can still feel it and the loose change
slimy beneath my frigid toes.
We jumped into that chapel moat
musing, are we just collected pennies?
Light dappled, Saarinen, frayed jeans
cuffs scraping the walk. We drank
under the crescent moon on the Kresge.
How we traded nothing but our shirts
for broken recognition.

*MIT fraternities rent rooms to outsiders
(Mainly students from other colleges who spend the summer in the Boston area.)