-possibly like love c.1450-

my earliest backyard faced the high,
woven-wire fence of Rachlin’s Junkyard.

my friends and I scaled it to our advantage
when building orange-crate racers

running them down the riven slopes of Healy Street.

Rachlin’s was an irresistible yet forbidden zone
of treasured gearshift knobs, red reflectors of light, rearview mirrors,
favored hubcaps and rare telescopic radio antennas,

all of which were sought-after for a presumed
psychological advantage on the speedway of Healy Street.

Maureen D'Concini's house sat well beyond the park
and across the street at the northernmost edge of the City Dump
and although she felt no desire to ever go in there, her hair at times
was perfumed in the lingering scent of something
smoldering beneath a mound of stuff once treasured.

my clothes often smelled like rusting metal
folded into the scent of a damp and tolerant junkyard dog.
he'd greet us with an exuberant tail and yips of recognition
after we'd scale the fence to stake our claims.

but I didn't have to scale a fence at the City Dump
in order to ride to Maureen D'Concini's house.
just a fast peddle over the paths, flattened by the bulldozers.

                                                                 Quequechan c.1953