Thirteen
It was quiet at home last night. Pedro didn't hear the moneyed creaks of his mother's bed, each breath with a new man. He didn't hide from a drunkard father who beat him with his fists till the boy's eyes bled. Pedro was thirteen now. He had a rendezvous with a wanting girl. He walked down the apartment steps and waited for an imagined first love. His life a sidewalk opera lit under a streetlight.

In the distance he thought he saw her--but his eyes were bad. He wanted to run, but his legs were bruised too much. So Pedro went home last night and prayed his father would lay drunk in some other stairwell. That his mother would sleep sound in a quiet bed.