Today’s Poem
Kid, these are train tracks, --Jeffrey Bean
the train never comes.
You smell it anyway, its blue-coal body. In August, the fringe sticky
with Queen Anne’s lace, you might walk these tracks inside
gigantic noons. I walked them. You might smash bottles,
start fires, watch clouds from your back, breathe clouds through
the red sparks of cigarettes. Take your first sips of bad
sweet wine, cry in a graveyard at night with your best friend, a half moon
and grave dirt in your hair. Have your first bad kiss here, like
swallowing a living fish. If you see the older kids, run, god
knows why. They will chase you into the waxy halls
of high school. Unlike me, you will have all your music
in your hand, the best movies, a phone that calls
everyone at once. Look up. The big fires of June stars
are so slow and boring they will keep you awake for good.
Swim the mucky river. Wash your hair in clover-smell,
the swish of trees. The crows— you can’t not love it
when they chatter the sun down. Follow gravel roads
to screaming crickets and beer, sleep out
on the hood of your hand-me-down Honda,
wake up with yellow flowers in your mouth. Walk the streets
on the first night of fall, every tree swelling
with what I can’t say and see in the lit-up houses
beautiful pictures of strangers.
