Partly Cloudy
Authors: Gary Soto
 
To Isabel Schon
It's 40âLove, and your serve
Copyright © 2009 by Gary Soto
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Graphia, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Harcourt Children's Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2009.
Graphia and the Graphia logo are trademarks of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
Test set in Berling FT Std
Designed by Linda Lockowitz
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Soto, Gary
Partly cloudy: poems of love and longing/Gary Soto.
p. cm.
1. TeenagersâPoetry. 2. First lovesâPoetry. 3. Love poetry, American. 4. Young adult poetry, American. I. Title.
PS3569.O72P37 2009
811'. 54âdc22
2008022267
ISBN: 978-0-15-206301-6 hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-547-57737-1 paperback
Manufactured in the United States of America
DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
4500335135
On the Side of a Bike Path
Not YetWhat was our future? I turned over
Your hand and studied your palm.
I noted two lines, one short, the other long.
I looked at mineâthree lines,
One filled with sweat from our three-mile ride.
I wondered to myself,
Why three?
Then I knewâyou were the first
To lie with me on a blanket,
And two others would follow,
Neither as beautiful.
As you stood up,
Shaking grass from your hair,
I gripped your handâpinched it, really.
Months from now you will not be mine.
CompositionThe weakest petals
Blow from the flowering tree,
And I think of myself
As a part of that tree,
My petals intact.
Not yet, I tell you,
We're young, just
Coming into bloom,
Our roots sinking
Daily into the earth.
Not yet, I tell you,
I a small tree,
You a taller, bending
Tree. The sun
Will roll over us,
And if a cloud
Of worry throws lightning,
Let's remember our fear.
Burrs & ThistlesCold day, cold without you,
Ice hanging from the eaves like teeth
And the sun riding out of town before I changed
Out of my pajamas. To get warm, I opened a can
Of alphabet soup, got it boiling,
And poured it into a bowl. The bowl was warm
As your hand. I liked that, steam curling
As I carefully carried it to the table.
I drank from the lip of the bowl,
And used a chopstick to form
I love you
From the tangle of floating letters.
I drank that sentence and began to glow.
What gifts do you bring me?
I see you walking
Across the baseball diamond,
A stick like a sword
Whacking at the tall grass.
The tips of your shoes
Will be green
As our love is green,
And your hair is the color
Of wheat. You see me,
And I wave.
You drop your stick
And run to me
Like Mercury,
Burrs, thistles, flakes
Of grass hooking
On your pant cuffs.
Â
Facts of LifeLater, at our favorite
Place at the river,
I'll whisper, “Do you love me?”
And think how other
Girls want to grab
You like those burrs
And thistles. Jealous,
I'll pluck every one of them
And flick them into the wind...
I Saw What You DidThe bee will touch the flower,
And the flower will not
Complain. The weight
Of the bee is like a teaspoon
Of honey, and its wings
Transparent as the boy in fifth periodâ
He likes me, a bee hovering
Above as we share a microscope.
Am I his flower? We almost touch shoulders
When we bend to look
At the slide. We laugh.
I'm then stungâhe leaves
My side and hovers over
A hippie girl named Sunflower.
In spring, boys don't last.
You plunged your giant hand
Into your pocket
For dimes and nickels.
Some pennies rolled
Into the server's hand
At McDonald's,
The one place we can afford.
I heard you stutter,
“Chocolate, no, I meanâstrawberry,”
My favorite flavor.
With two straws, we left
To sit on a benchâ
Two pigeons stared at us.
When we lowered our faces
Toward that rosy milk shake,
Our eyes locked on each other,
And as we bumped heads,
Both of us almost
Choked from giggling.
Â
Rough HandsI saw what you didâ
You pretended to drink
From the straw.
You let me have most
Of the milk shake.
That was nice.
You called me sweet,
Strawberry sweet.
Lotion is a slippery essence
Applied on a winter day
Â
When an icy wind sings through the bare trees.
But I prefer my hands rough.
Â
StarsThis way, when I hold yours,
You won't slip away.
Natural TalentI was spooked by a possum, the crunch of leaves,
Something going
hoot, hoot
in a tree.
I jumped when a fish jumped in the creekâ
How you laughed your beautiful laugh.
You were guiding me along that creek
And finally up a hill to view the stars
Set deep against the black, black sky.
You held my hand. You said,
“You're my star.” Here,
I
laughed.
Was this some line? You kissed me,
Then said the stars were really dead
But their light was moving earthward
And influencing everything from the seas
To our love. Yes, you used the word
love.
I pulled my hair back.
You pressed your body against mine.
No longer scared of possums, the rustling leaves,
Or the sounds in the trees,
I was happy there was something called stars.
ObsessionYou brought out a can of chicken noodle soup
And set its contents in a pot
Over the stove's collar of blue flames.
“Wow,” I said, “you can cook.”
The refrigerator's bulb shone on your handsome face
When you brought out a block of cheeseâ
You deftly cut little squares
And placed them onto saltines.
“Where did you learn all this?” I asked,
And you shrugged your shoulders.
I even liked how you turned on the kitchen faucet
With your elbowâyou had to keep
Your fingers cleanâand whittled little pieces
Of salami. We ate looking at each other,
Me so obviously in love. I asked, “Do you iron?”
You noddedâgod, you have shiny hair!
After we ate, you asked me to take...
To take off my blouse! “Slow down,” I said,
Hands on my hips. Then I understood.
You gave me a sweatshirt to wear
While you sewed on my loose fourth button.
Where did you learn this,
Multitasking lover boy of mine?
Don't You SeeThree photos of you on the front of my binder,
Two inside when I flip it open.
Downloaded photos of you on my bedroom wall,
In a locket my cat paws jealously,
And in my diary I lock with a key.
I'm obsessed with you. This spring wherever
I turn I see you, even in the faces
Of cumulus clouds I could pinch like a cheek.
I had my eyes checked last week
And the optometrist with beady eyes said,
“A curious case. Young lady, there's a picture
Of a boy at the back of your retinas.”
If only you would turn
And see me. I think I'm nice,
Â
And you're nice, too.
Does that mean we're compatible?
Â
And look! We go to the same
School, at the same hour,
Â
And under the same sun.
The blossoms are fluttering
Â
From the fruitless cherry tree.
But is
this
fruitless? I'm flying
Â
In and out of your shadow,
Stepping up steps,
Â
Down steps, slowing
For water at the drinking fountain,
Â
And bending over to tie my shoe.
Â
If only you would turn
And see me
Â
SignsSeeing you.
At the beginning of baseball season,
You spoke of the distance between like and love.
This made me bite my lower lip in worry.
I think you were telling me somethingâ
Are you done with me? Is your life all baseball?
Or maybe there's another girl.
I've seen your eyes slide away from me
And look at others. Okay, I'm jealous.
Now, from the bleachers, I watch each thing
You doâtouching your cap,
Digging dirt from your cleatsâand think
You're telling me something,
Like the third-base coach
Touching his nose and mouth.
Â
StrategyIs that a sign for you to run?
I went to class, sat in a chair
That wobbled and rocked. Got up
Â
And changed seats.
I got up again, and again.
Â
ExaggerationThat's how I happened
To sit next to you.
I knew you were in love.
At the restaurant you raced to get the door,
And while the sign said PULL,
You pushed, the heels of your shoes
Losing traction. People gathered around us,
Confused, as you begged, “No, no, let me!”
But you pushed instead of pulled.
Sweat glistened on your upper lip
And your faceâI can still see itâwas red.
You stopped. You informed the crowd, “It's stuck.”
When a little old lady stepped up to open the door,
Everyone rudely rushed in front of usâ
We had to wait twenty minutes for a table.
Â
Meaning What?Okay, I exaggerate. But not when I say
I knew you were in love with me,
And I with you, the boy pushing ahead in life.
When I heard the phrase
I long for you,
I first thought it was bad grammar
And then began to think,
No, it's something like
long
book,
Long
movie,
long
drive to look
At the mountains or the sea,
Or it's Dad examining
Every dinosaur bone and dinosaur egg
At the Natural History Museumâ
Now that's long! But when I turned
Thirteen, I finally understood,
And so did my classmate Jennifer Lee,
Her pretty face red for Brandon.
I asked, “How do you say 'I long for you'
In Mandarin?” and she said, "
Wo xi huan ni.
"
I really didn't understand what she was saying,
But now I know what she meant.