Partly Cloudy

Partly Cloudy

Table of Contents

Title Page

Table of Contents

Dedication

Copyright

A Girl's Tears, Her Songs

On the Side of a Bike Path

Not Yet

Composition

Burrs & Thistles

Facts of Life

I Saw What You Did

Rough Hands

Stars

Natural Talent

Obsession

Don't You See

Signs

Strategy

Exaggeration

Meaning What?

Consequence

Full Price

Jealousy

Black Books

Barriers

Testing You

The Big Chill

First Kiss

Anonymous Tug

Paper Boat

Fake Love

The Invisible Girl

Neighborhood

Horses

Playing Football

Lazy Cupid

For the Love of Dogs

Little Puppy

Pears

Bossy Girl

When I Lost You

Time with You

Sparks

Home Alone, and Liking It

A Boy’s Body, His Words

Mirror

The Second Button

Open House

Vegan for Your Love

A Long Weekend Without You

So Much Alike

Fall Dance

Country Music

Beautiful Trouble

Busted

Tree Bark

Simple Me

A Certain Weakness

The Koi at the Museum Pond

The Birds and the Bees

Boy Artist

Rumors

Faces

Rationale

A Lesson for Us

Eternal Love

Danger

Time

Pomegranate as My Heart

Driftwood

Getting to Know You

Imagination

A View of Heaven

Forest of Boulders

Leaving the Bookstore

Love Medicine

Spreading Love

Mystery

Hard Work

Iowa Evening

Playing Our Parts

Out in Nature

An Act of Kindness

About the Author

To Isabel Schon

It’s 40–Love, 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.

www.hmhbooks.com

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. Teenagers—Poetry. 2. First loves—Poetry. 3. Love poetry, American. 4. Young adult poetry, American. I. Title.

PS3569.O72P37 2009

811'. 54—dc22

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

A Girl's Tears, Her Songs

On the Side of a Bike Path

What was our future? I turned over

Your hand and studied your palm.

I noted two lines, one short, the other long.

I looked at mine—three lines,

One filled with sweat from our three-mile ride.

I wondered to myself, Why three?

Then I knew—you 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 hand—pinched it, really.

Months from now you will not be mine.

Not Yet

The 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.

Composition

Cold 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.

Burrs & Thistles

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.

Later, 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...

Facts of Life

The 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 period—

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 stung—he leaves

My side and hovers over

A hippie girl named Sunflower.

In spring, boys don't last.

I Saw What You Did

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 mean—strawberry,”

My favorite flavor.

With two straws, we left

To sit on a bench—

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.

I saw what you did—

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.

Rough Hands

Lotion is a slippery essence

Applied on a winter day

When an icy wind sings through the bare trees.

But I prefer my hands rough.

This way, when I hold yours,

You won't slip away.

Stars

I was spooked by a possum, the crunch of leaves,

Something going hoot, hoot in a tree.

I jumped when a fish jumped in the creek—

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.

Natural Talent

You 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 cheese—

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 elbow—you had to keep

Your fingers clean—and whittled little pieces

Of salami. We ate looking at each other,

Me so obviously in love. I asked, “Do you iron?”

You nodded—god, 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?

Obsession

Three 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.”

Don't You See

If only you would turn

And see me. I think I'm nice,

And you're nice, too.

Does that mean we're compatible?

And look! We go to the same

School, at the same hour,

And under the same sun.

The blossoms are fluttering

From the fruitless cherry tree.

But is this fruitless? I'm flying

In and out of your shadow,

Stepping up steps,

Down steps, slowing

For water at the drinking fountain,

And bending over to tie my shoe.

If only you would turn

And see me

Seeing you.

Signs

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 something—

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 do—touching your cap,

Digging dirt from your cleats—and think

You're telling me something,

Like the third-base coach

Touching his nose and mouth.

Is that a sign for you to run?

Strategy

I went to class, sat in a chair

That wobbled and rocked. Got up

And changed seats.

I got up again, and again.

That's how I happened

To sit next to you.

Exaggeration

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 face—I can still see it—was 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 us—

We had to wait twenty minutes for a table.

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.

Meaning What?

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 Museum—

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.

Consequence

When a stone bridge fails,

You can rebuild it with your hands.

With love, when it falls,

The rocks shoot sparks. Gossips

Gather at the river's edge,

Skipping stones across the water,

Asking intently, “Who brought it down?”

Full Price

We missed the half-price

Matinee. But that was okay.

We walked around a
nd did math

In our heads, both of us poor

But geniuses for figures.

Then you helped a man

Push a car barely alive

On the fumes of precious gas.

When the man tried to press

Ten dollars into your palm,

You said, “No, sir, no, we're fine.”

We returned to the theater

And looked up at the marquee—

The movie was called Totally and Forever.

You held my hand

As you would have in the theater,

And under the halo of lights

I explained the plot.

Jealousy

In the hallway, I pass your ex-girlfriend,

Tall as me, brown hair and eyes like me,

And have to think, What's the difference?

I think of her in your arms,

And the cute things you said into her ear.

What did you tell her? What secrets?

When I turn to spy on her, I see she also turned—

Tall as me, brown hair and eyes like me,

And both of us baring our teeth.

Black Books

Each time I get a boyfriend,

I buy a black book and promise myself

To take notes. He's nice,

He's not nice. He buys me a soda,

He takes it back and drinks it all!

His grilled teeth shine like a lie.

He turns his pockets inside out—

“I'm poor,” he claims,

And my ten dollars flies from my hand

To his. “We need gas money,” he says,

But why am I always on the sidewalk

Waving good-bye?

Will I ever find the right boy?

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