They
had a hedge around their house
to
keep us kids in and demons out—
but
lo, they were always going up and over, AM to PM,
Chuck
and Dyl and Nick and Will from down the hill,
and
were squeezing underneath and teasing us
and
taking our stuff with them.
So
maybe ludicrous, perhaps unnecessary,
like
a standardized test, the chains the kept us captive
were
just a diamond shadow protest
on
the face of a stucco wall undried
when
we were taught but not processed,
all
caught up inside the yard
and
yet told to "leave the nest."
So
only those who fell from grace could
find
themselves outside that place—
those older kids who hopped it and then
all else forbid,
while
we were stuck hanging on its reigns so jagged
as
the thug kids teased us yard spirits in chains
saying
"Whacha gonna do kid?”
So
however worried, never interested,
and
even less impressed, the chains that kept us tested
seemed
confining and obsessed,
on
a quest to keep us on the green
by
an aluminum conquest
so
we'd wait wasted, still unseen,
and
then eat our pills for rest.
--Poems from the Sprawl
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