On Stationary Paper
Just a street
Pulled beneath me, as the car
Cruises into the left turn lane
Along a set of lines ground up
With rubber from the tires of thousands
Of vehicles as they made the same turn
Many times, no doubt, in their own respect
It is the turn we make
From my aunt’s house on one hill
To my grandparent’s on another
If my mind were a jar
And this memory were a jellybean
There would be thousands like it with slight differences
But they would probably taste the same.
And only some genius kid
Could guess the number of beans in the jar.
In the corner is a gas station
Where my younger brother once bought condoms
When he was barely into double digits
It was a game changer for us all.
And we laughed.
Sometimes we were going
And sometimes we were leaving
The weight at the end of the pendulum changed with the direction
One side laden with anticipation and the glory of the rising sun
The other hearts set in retrograde
A setting sun on our summer
Still the same lights and posts and street.
My cousin saw his best friend die here
One day after school
Crossing the street
Both ways
It was the same lights then
It was too far if we were going to the park
It was just before we got to the Boll Weevil
And it never seemed far enough
If I had a pick and a hammer
I would take down the layers of paint
On the signs and posts
To the bare steel
Or at least to the color it wore
When my mother and her sisters
Had seen it
On their way back from school
So I could into their soul.