-topical, tactical, popsicle, bicycle-

of the earliest of friends:
the flavor of choice was cherry red.

(color of my Schwinn) ––

we'd suck the sweet syrup out from the convex turn,

the edge of its sides to a glitter of ice.

Inside the corner stores, the freezers, chest-high,
smoked with cold at the lift of their lids.
curbstones were best to split the beauties at their spines.

we're close to home at this stage of life;
the ballpark's active, the bakeries are warmly scented, the red-
bricked mill-stacks billow smoke above hard labor, the calm 
reflections of freshwater ponds and the Moon-geared
mechanics of saltwater tides, link to neighborhood, whose
poetry lay waiting for its evolution.

call me a weak interpreter of the virtuosity expected of such an endeavor
and I'll tell you that it's strong enough; that I came here, as they have,
documentation in hand, procured at the altar of a place on the hillside
at the banks of the river that you, too, are well aware of.


Quequechan / mid 20th century