Perhaps I needed a separate cart

for my hair, or anything else crouched

 

on my back. My heart: a dumpy paper

coaster. I was making history

 

useless, just like the textbooks we had

with our parents’ names shaved

 

into back covers. I could not un-light

the weekly paper on fire, but

 

could forget the way an Oldsmobile

burned on four cinderblocks

 

in the Chicago of my childhood,

where every car was an Oldsmobile

 

on blocks, and sometimes blocks

and blocks of houses went up, so all

 

the mothers brought their grape soda

and gin to the curb. Houses so

 

close together I could slap the neighbor

girl’s face through the shag peak

 

of a corridor elm. Some roofs

were patched with corrugated plastic,

 

the occasional refrigerator box.

So when I boil everything, including

 

the boy’s sneakers, I am using intrinsic

knowledge. The incorrect guide

 

book where we would scratch out

the year 1965, send strangers down

 

roads that burned years ago,

to a bakery now covered by gravel.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Tim