I could tell the way he touched me was
strange, but not necessarily wrong.

He told me, and told me, that it was normal.
How could something that felt so good be wrong?

I drifted above myself, turning over
that question in my mind, over and over.

For two and a half years I was a bundle of confusion,
sticks stacked every which way.

We did the normal routines—washing our hands,
clearing our plates, rising for the Shema—out in the open.

In the open fields, everyone can see how you grow,
how you take in sunlight and breathe.

We became intertwined when nobody could see.
Our roots and limbs grew in the darkness.

I didn’t know then that foxglove and violets bloom in shade.
What is it like to be foxglove, to be a violet?