the boy with red hair

the boy
with red hair
in the old neighbor hood
knew
everything
there was to know about
sex.
a walking encyclopedia
of the female
anatomy.
he was fourteen,
we were ten and eleven.
he would
gather us
around in the alley
and tell us
how a woman worked.
describing each part of
a girl
in detail. the legs, the arms,
the breasts.
we were in awe.
do this, he would say,
do that,
they love when you
touch them there,
just so.
we took notes in our mind.
we couldn't
wait for the next lesson.
we couldn't
wait when it was our turn
to kiss
a girl and put our lessons
into play.
in time he went off to
Vietnam
and came back broken,
the blue eyes
had lost their shine.
he spoke little of women
anymore, but we were older
then,
and he would never
be the same, nor would we.