Temenos, the lit magazine at Central Michigan University, has published my poem "Boys" in a slightly different version in its 2011 issue, which arrived in my mailbox today. One of my favorite Michiganders, Danny Rendleman, has a poem in the same issue. Check it out.
BOYS
In the spare room of Odd Fellows Hall
we practiced half-hitches and square knots,
recited the words we’d memorized
then spilled out the door
to what we came for --
a dark vacant lot without rules
where we piled on any boy who had the ball,
dragged him hard to newly frosted ground,
hoping for blood.
Feral under an ivory moon, we did
what injury we could at 80 pounds
with narrow shoulders, skinny
arms and legs,
while the Scoutmaster and assistant
sat on folding chairs under a bare bulb, lit up,
and traded stories in a quiet drawl
that drifted with tobacco smoke across the carnage
like the certainty we were bred with,
that we lived in the best little place on earth
and everything was fine.
No comments:
Post a Comment