-elements to occasionally entertain-

the blown piston-rod broke free of its exposed
souped-up engine and whizzed passed my german-
beezered head while standing with early friends along the shoulder

on the quarter-mile straightaway of Route 6 East late into night

after Sambo’s Diner closed its doors, giving way to the pungent
scent of burning rubber and spent, high octane leaded gasoline.

close to death for the first time at the shoulder of Route 6 East.

later, they said my childhood friend died of "natural causes"

in Miami, which is perfectly understandable

and another early friend, he died in a Fall River hospital of lung cancer
in a semi-private room next to a guy traveling down the same

unrelenting avenue bound for endlessness.

I sometimes think about that other guy laying there

with only a folding screen standing between him

and everything else there was and all which might have been.

(all are added to the expansion of things to do
within a limited time, compressing with increasing momentum)

and there are other things, too,––

like that very early tactile sensation of a small square of linoleum
lifting away from the kitchen’s floorboard near the sink.

you see, it snapped whenever I released the linoleum after stepping on it,
so I kept doing it,–– stepping, releasing, snapping, until they told me to stop.

"You'll make it worse!" they said, as though I was merely picking at a scab.