American Street

Summer’s writhing beauty,

grieving in isolation’s stain, paved over –

bountied thickets, turned earth,

fallowed fields

Pillars of stray sticks and clay

paths to the top. Unfettered in their view

of imagined decades

Bloody battles laid bare in pages

of the World Book

Statistics of the dead –

gruesome and grotesque,

bravely reenacted by boys on the street

Supply runs,

the exchange in Doraville – ‘Old Sarge’

Replica, semi-automatic, battery-operated M-16

charged soundscapes, flanked

in the woods behind our houses

Bunkered in camouflage gear,

with face paint sticks,

and hot water canteens

Go-cart trails across the street,

written in the trees,

too afraid to ride or drive, I’d watch

At the edge of a long backyard,

a creek dammed in piles dug out,

erosion of its banks,

attracting mosquitos, and the ire

of grandmothers

The street we’d roam,

packing Daisy pellet guns. Distressing friends

shooting at squirrels on power lines

Kicking fences of angry yard dogs

Spying and profiling,

across and between a ditch and some yards,

our tormented neighbor, brandishing,

and his idle threats

My older cousins played stickball

over Miller Lite in the backyard

of their bachelor house

Wiffle balls wrapped

in black electric tape

Thrown heat, it would welt your skin

if pegged, your bare hands if caught,

off a wicked yellow plastic bat

A trove of dirty magazines in their front

bathroom closet, not

just Playboy or Penthouse,

they had Genesis, Gallery and Oui

Taking one from the bottom of the pile

in my waist band, I’d sneak past

them and their friends, drinking

and talking about the lines on games,

calling their bookies

We traded baseball cards out of plastic sheets,

re-visioning series’ in the yard,

reimagining each future and past

season of major American team sports,

but not hockey or soccer

Night games of Capture the Flag,

epic in the darkness

with only one light on the street – pitch black all around

Explorations of the spring, the destination

of the neighborhood creek

A live crawdad was swallowed whole

on part of the journey

I blazed a trail, bionic speed,

over rumors of wild dogs,

all the way home

Summer’s blissful abandon,

rezoned for posterity,

its development passed

in memoriam

MM 3/17