He Is My Everything
He is my everything, he is my heart
He is my everything, a guiding star
And when I speak to him, he'll understand
And when the storm passes over he'll take my hand
Johan knows enough to ask for books and trucks on birthdays
His bedside table's cluttered with the trucks he's never touched
When no one's home he goes into his sister's room and turns the spinning lamp on
Cut out dolphins swim against a sea of tissue paper blue
This year for books it was the best, Archie's in a bathing suit
He's lean but has a strong and chiseled chest, Reggie too
In Mystery of the Ticking Clock, the Hardy Boys look bettered
Joe and Frank gagged and tied to chairs in V neck sweaters
In German class the girls choir sings as Johan enters
The older boys knock off his hat and snap his suspenders
He drifts his eyes across the room, his gaze is fixed on Caleb Haas
Gentle and beguiling, the lingering stare is caught
Johan reels, looks away, turns back, Caleb's head is down
A timid smile that settles deep in Johan's gut and bowels
On a hot night after chores, kids run off to pet the mare
Beside the feed shed, Caleb stops Johan with a whack from a poplar switch
They roll and wrestle in the weeds and freeze with Caleb's weight on top
His breath close in on Johan's neck, groin pressed hard against his thigh
Making sure their eyes don't meet, keep a strange and secret trust
The clutch somehow anonymous
The sticky sweat on hairless skin, pulses rises and seize their throats
Wonder, terror, familiar
Marie is near and calls their names
They push and punch and break away
The kids bang on the feed shed siding
Caleb, Johan, come, stop fighting
By the gates a crowd has come, a newsman there from Calgary
At the elders' invitation, an unprecedented stand
'It doesn't take kids long to learn about the birds and bees
They know full well there's got to be a bull there with the cows
A stallion with the horses, and when they're raising rabbits
There's got to be a boy rabbit and a mother rabbit.
If we allow this bill to pass, and this trend to move forward,
Canada will become the next Sodom and Gomorrah
Imagine like only with like, and same only with same
There would be no more human race, it would be our country's darkest day.'
At supper, Johan hears the voices loud at the men's table
Sees his father pound his fist down hard beside the plate
He tells his mother he is ill, and asks to be excused
Bolting from the dining hall, running to the feed shed wall
He prays for it to go away, he prays that God will change him
He prays to God to spare his soul from Hell, he prays that Caleb doesn't tell
The morning lesson- The Faithful Must Unite
A history of persecution, martyrdom and flight
Wind and dust up in his face, the sky is grey around him
The stream is brown, the sow barn reeks, the wood shop smells like poison
Head in hands, eyes shut, he sees a tower in flames eclipsed
By stains of licorice and orange juice on Caleb's lips.
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