by Anne Panning

Boys at eighteen grow cereal bowls full
Of loose change on their bedside tables.
Crumpled dollar bills tumbleweed into

Future haircuts, first and last months’ rent,
an education sealed under glass. Boys at
eighteen come and they go. They leave traces

of sleep on bed pillows. They whisper their
goodbyes in the tinkling of empty hangers in
abandoned closets. Their shoulders carry the

weight of XL. They drive borrowed cars to
the point of distraction. Their big shoes left
floating by the door like empty boats waiting

for high tide. Boys at eighteen leave gurgling
aquariums in the care of mothers and fathers
who feed consistently. Never once forgetting.

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Anne Panning published her first memoir, Dragonfly Notes: On Distance and Loss (Stillhouse Press, 2018). She has also published a novel, Butter, as well as a short story collection, The Price of Eggs, and Super America, which won The Flannery O’Connor Award and was a New York Times Editor's Choice. She is currently working on a second memoir about her late father, a barber and addict. She teaches creative writing at SUNY-Brockport.