Cherry Boy

When my daddy was little my grandmother used to tape his ears down
In hopes they would stay.
As you can see it didn't work.
If he was my baby
I would have rolled his ears between my lips
And called them apricots
As I did with my own sweet things many years later.
But that just pinpoints a major difference between
My grandmother and me.

Maybe though, this boyish vulnerability,
His goofy, sweet ears, were one of the things
That prompted the working girls of Korea
To call him
Cherry Boy.