Eleven

In the afternoon he hurries home to watch Doctor Who.

On weekends, he rides his bike to the milkbar

to buy burger rings and chokito bars,

his whole suburb smelling of sugar from the wizz fizz factory.

He likes turning over stones to find beetles underneath.

Some nights he lies in bed, unable to sleep but content,

peering up at a galaxy of glow-in-the-dark stars

marvelling at the rise and fall of his own chest.

No one he loves has ever been seriously hurt, or died.

If he sees something beyond his comprehension

(a man sleeping on a pile of rags,

a woman telling her kids to fuck off,

a book in his parents' bedside drawer called The Joy of Sex)

his mind kindly erases itself, or stores it away for a later time.

For now, in this moment, in this bubble of time and space,
he is loved, he is protected, he is safe.