First Date

In a tucked away corner in St. Boniface Cemetery, under the deep shade of the maples,

two boys, young men, on a date, I assume, two boys sit so close that their leg hairs touch.

Next to them, on the grass, a bottle, a paper plate, and a knife, the guys have been cutting

up a melon, the flesh is in their mouths, the juice remains, sticky on their fingers, and it

runs off the plate, and into the grass, and down into the soldier’s grave where they sit.

Robert McDonald’s first book of poems, A Streetlight That's Been Told It Used to Be the Moon, is coming from Roadside Press in 2026. His work has appeared in 2 Rivers View, Action/Spectacle, I-70 Review, The San Pedro River Review, The Madrid Review, and West Trade Review, among others. He lives with his husband in Chicago.