Let me laugh about this.

I know that look, man.
The kids run past me.
I’m amazed they can move like that,
and not get blisters as wide as their eyes.

We should all be so lucky.
We should all find a key to a bag man briefcase
in the cushions of the couch.

I turn,
finally get to know for sure
that the ocean breeze from Maryland
isn’t going to forsake me this month,
and those ten-year-olds are already looking,
already hoping for tax breaks in the silver city.

But I know the look.
I caught it for a second.
I remember it. God help me.
I remember the first time I played Truth or Dare.
And a high school girl just happened to be part of it.
And just happened to play her turn just how I was hoping she would.

I was twelve. My parents were three thousand miles apart.
I turned thirteen. My parents didn’t have a record collection to split.

You know what would have been great in a neighborhood like that?

A merry-go-round.

Yeah,
well,
you can buy me a ticket to the pity parade,
but it was the mood I had on that cold, colorless street,
and it’s the mood I have now. Whenever the crowbar breaks
the driver’s side window and my dearest idiot friend
can’t get his fingers to turn the key.

Can’t or won’t.
I wouldn’t blame him for either or.
Just as I wouldn’t blame the Canadian wife
with problems of her own.

She probably babysat those kids in that neighborhood, huh?
She might have been imagining a singing career in Vancouver.

Anything used to be prone to happening then.

I knew that neighborhood,
but then again I could only remember
every other house on the first block,
and even less than that on the second.

Didn’t know those kids.
But I knew their clothes,
and I knew the look on their faces,
and I knew the pitch and meaning of their laughter.

I knew where they were going,
and even if I could have
I wouldn’t have stopped them
for all the forgiveness in Austin.

Who needs something like that on their conscience?

Not me, man.

03/12/2012

Posted on 03/12/2012
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