Attraction

At 15, I am introduced

     to my cousin Rudy, 24.

We sit across the table smiling,

    our mothers beside us chatting 

in their mother tongue.

    My teen eyes unprepared for  

his Santa Fe blues and

    my browns retreat.

But a force rises from the ground 

     to push our atoms together, 

commanding my eyes to seal 

     onto his 

and injects a poison that 

     makes it impossible to blink

and I worry our mothers 

     will see this conjunction--

this inability to act--

      and understand.