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“Billy’s first Calvin’s”

A mismatched plate of lukewarm casserole,

A Tupperware of salad, sealed and stacked.

My mother dragged me through another night

Of blurred geography and borrowed light—

An endless march of "aunties" without names,

And "cousins" whose inheritance was fixed,

Where poverty was kept out of the room,

Though sitting in the backseat, unbetrayed.

We ate our fill on unfamiliar chairs,

The chatter hummed above my awkward frame—

Thirteen, and hyper-conscious of the gap

Between the things we had and didn't have.

And then the back doors opened to the night:

A glowing rectangle of chlorine blue,

Steam rising off the water, clean and deep.

"Go on," they said. "Jump in, the water’s fine."

I had no trunks. No branded boardshorts brought.

So down to standard cotton briefs I stripped—

No logos on the band, just stretched white thread—

And plunged into the warm, illuminated dark.

For twenty minutes, underwater, equalized,

Weights floated off; the light dissolved the shame.

Out on the deck, the night air turned me cold.

Inside the poolside change room, dripping wet,

Left on a bench beneath a halogen glow,

lay a pair of dropped Calvin Kleins.

My cousin’s, likely—neatly stitched and dark,

The sharp white block letterings sitting high:

CALVIN KLEIN. A small, woven decree.

I peeled away my sodden, nameless pair,

And pulled the damp black fabric up my thighs.

The waistband gripped my hips like heavy gold,

A secret armor underneath my clothes.

Standing there wet-haired on foreign tile,

Looking down at the letters on my waist,

I felt the sharp, cold quiet of a vow:

I’d never sit back in that dark again,

I’d never eat the scraps of charity,

I’d never, ever in my life be poor.

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