We swapped stories
about how I wore a cast to my first birthday
and the history of the bite marks
on all of your first grade classmates.
You told me that by eight you already packed to leave twice,
bindle and a hand full of cheerios,
while I practiced my disguises
and steadied my aim with orange tipped guns.
(The small white pools of nitrate
would crack and darken as I trained not to blink.)
Together we would follow dirt roads to their ends
with six foot cattails and the meadowlands--
populated with tall leaning antennas
and the crooked birds' nests they housed.
You captured it all in the facsimile of instant chemical reactions,
somehow the horizon perfectly level
in every shot.
You would have made an excellent marksman
if the targets were all sun splayed leaves
or the abandoned city streets we jaywalked,
our trespasses declared and documented
according to the appropriate naming convention.
I can't help but think of these things
every time I catch your eye
and I realize
this generic drive cannot be stopped.
