When they were children, back yards were expansive as the west. They drew pictures of pillows to rest their minds. To dance. For how long can a bubble on a sleeve survive? The bumble buzzing bees sit silent in tufts of green, remembering snowsuits in spring. Long sticks poked porcupine quills and short sticks enforced the law. They conducted follow the leader mutant training camps. He wanted a window with a view. She told him, with algae breathing between his toes, hermit crabs submerged in icy salt-water pockets pinch for their lives. Hornets scream from throats. He saw a Quail perched on a Bush whispering, “read my lips,” on television. Reticent to take showers in waters pulsing of memories and heart streams. “If your mother only knew.” The frozen creek they used to taunt cows across to watch them slip, stained with pink evidence of a cops and robbers game gone wrong. She offered to show him hers if he showed her his. He made her go first and ran to the playground. Flash — lights — flash at fragile passersby. They were all born this way. Try, try again. Rumble between three families’ shifting allegiances, on the churchyard hill, cousins, neighbors and pastor’s sons. Reminding him of a grandmother’s distended cleavage.
When they were children, ‘reach into my swim trunks’. She had red hair, and did so without his asking. He sliced off a boy’s nose with the twisted end of a steel pole while twirling it over his head like a ninja turtle. They were all born. This way they could fling rocks from tires at twenty miles per hour. He appreciated the popped balloons for the prick and their pop that sounded nothing like POP! Can he get a witness to testify? If his mommy had thrown his basin of shit and pee in his face, continuing to smile at her clients with an aura of authority. Cannon ball tunnels through snow banks collapse with the weight of steaming urine. They didn’t understand, so he filled the third grade classroom with helium and batman figurines programmed to ask what hemorrhoids were at high frequencies. The sun gouges out eyes forever closed. When they were children, they were children. They were rich with no one to blame. They slept on studio floors during blizzards — living the dream. Leaving him in nightmare solitude leaking through the cracks in reality. Time zone referring to the pace at which. Underground parking garages versus haylofts. Drag them away. Clip the cord. Midnight rides to plug in rogue telephone wires. He developed new fears of faces of the future. So many mothers with lead boot agendas for their little boys.
He heard, Mosquitos transmit rabies.
Nu, uh. Yeah suh!
Better safe than sorry.
Mmhmmmm.
Follow the
leader is a
game for
dipterous insects
in the family
Culicidae, the females suck
on animals
transmitting malaria and
yellow fever.
May twelfth,
I’m leading training unit Sledge: Goggles, ski mask, gloves, long-sleeves, snow-pants snug over bean-boots.
All systems set for operation contaminant investigation.
The climb is sweaty
Broken branches echo far away
Beneath his feet.
The birds have all vanished deep
into skies. The last cloud drifts aimless.
He can see his breath fogging the orange lens.
A dead fox warm, exotic, nurturing garden
Twig prod inspection causes—
Isopods to scatter.
No obvious sign of death
but a tongue splitting teeth.
They are still in the thick twenty yards
just see the curved edge of the crest.
TUCK IN YOUR SLEEVE!
eyes on.
exposed skin
run
HE’S GOT RABBIES RUN.
Today, the best way to maintain relationships is to disappear —
Into memory.
Sprite cans explode when dropped on abandoned bank lobby floors. Nalgene bottles break. Plow! And Blam! WACK! Donkeys on a minefield. Little girls love dolphin jewelry. Dancing with one girl all night leaves nape rash. The Gulf war vet’s retina melting, screaming, limps, toward the self-righteous mob. He felt like a kid again at nineteen, buying a forty ounce with a beard. Blind as a mole, with hard hat and shovel. The Sun gouges out eyes forever closed. The Truth, though he had closed himself as fingers, ‘you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens.’ She sweeps chimneys looking for diamonds in million-year-old ash. Rush: missing something that was there, but isn’t his. Stumble and fall. From candy bars, toy cars, sunglasses, Star Wars novels, playboys, and autographed Simpsons posters rolled into sleeves, they were unstoppable. He thunder clapped his duffel bag against the castle wall after a two for one opportunity missed. Fire orange hair, and suddenly an outsider to the stranger town. They competed as if it was a west coast-east coast thing. Time zone referring to the pace at which. They tasted like licorice.