Voice

The best man's voice broke

on "forever" and the tent

went warm with laughter—the kind

that means we've all been there.

He pushed through it. Kept going.

And I was fifteen,

hands damp on index cards,

standing at the podium in Mrs. Hayes's class.

Reconstruction. That was the topic.

I opened my mouth and two voices

came out—the boy's and the almost-

man's—snagged on each other

like thread catching a nail.

The room laughed. Not mean,

just quick. The body's honest

flinch at a sound it wasn't expecting.

Go on, she said.

So I went on. Card by card,

the first one torn at the corner

where my thumb had been pressing

too hard the whole time.

Walked home. Sat at dinner.

Chewed. Nodded. Didn't speak

for the rest of the night.

My mother asked what's wrong.

Nothing, I said—

the first full sentence I'd trusted

my throat with in hours.

That's the thing about fifteen.

Your body does something

you didn't authorize

and then you live inside it

all week, testing each word

before you let it out.

Twenty years later a groomsman

lifts his glass and my hand

finds the water before I know

what it's reaching for.

I drink until the feeling passes.

It starts to.