Reduce it all to bricks and chunks of cement
your stepfather makes you gather
for 10 cents an hour
then wash yourself,
and unidentifiable car parts
in his manly solvent until
your liver hurts when you get up
for school.
Get Mom's legal Dexedrine out of the closet
off the high shelf,
hit two and save three,
ride your ass off
on that big long city
bus, trade some to Butch who had that tall sister
(I might have loved her if she hadn't moved so hard
to the West but God
she was spooky with her eyes
going all those different
ways)
for joints.
Trim trees for good money for Dave
whose daughter has a glass
eye and marries the Greek kid
young. Visit the prison
on a field trip, another
time put food on a back porch and knock,
then run, you're thinking
back while you: Pull
the rope back hard
until bark chips fly
and score
the wood, you think you
might finally
try out for football this year
(like big chance there, you with your plastic
dinosaur collection and Grandma)
if you could walk a little tougher
if your little sister came home again
if they didn't laugh at you around that beer table,
if you could get through that hole
in the crazy peoples' fence,
before the rock salt flew,
if you could get some vague bearings
if someone's stupid life
and that's meant in the best possible way
didn't depend
on you holding this rope,
washing those pistons,
getting together around a spare table
in some dim-lit yellow linoleum kitchen
like a family
hoping someday you could teach
somebody not to be this way.
to live
just to live
to write about it.
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