The cheap cocktails smudge the lens and
cudgel open a soft heart of skull
where once a rope swing in the elm, the river, the grill
bumped over at a barbeque,
where once toy tanks in the tall grass, little league
bubble gum, dusty August onion
rings, once itchy underpants, a note dropped, locker
combinations, slow walks holding
hands, growing up into crowbars and bats in the gas
station parking lot, the one .22 in the glove
compartment of a ’78 Nova rusted blue with a hole
in the floor and a stolen tape deck
stereo of stone wash, Champion sweaters, hair
waiting in a can, masturbation
discussed in a city bus not long after
a bomb scare, teachers creeping on pretty track
stars so cold, wonderful, Bud Light bright
the complete devotion to the tears and the play
of furious cliché blocked, propped,
and costumed in real time across a script
a century or so old in the woods
behind the football field, in the cement
factory, by the train dodge train
tracks doing push ups for the cops lining us up
for the wagon and phone calls home
for which we will now wait up all night one
blue October after our electric
archetype has long slipped behind an iris wipe
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