Summer Story (Heat Wave '96)

Now the kids are playing "capture the hat" on the lawn

in the heat wave down on Mendon Street—

They've gone to where Zach with the neat shirt reading "Bull Shit"

and his girl sit perched up on top of the jungle gym as if to cheat 
the park's fleet of mowers down on the baseball greens.

The two of them sit up there after school to beat the heat

and keep it cool before the evening's spray,

for the sprinklers' soon to mist and then they'll be in the fray

to lay on down and roll their clothes all strewn out just to stay

a while at “second base” and chill out in their jeans.

From up there they seem to rule the rust and field

just high up where only the big kids climb,

that royal perch with the chipping paint so they can act like saints

and trip the neighbor's backyard pool to know just the right time

to take a dip so they can wade in like kings and queens.

And behind them the houses lining the afternoon sky

loom overhead beyond the city pool and

shadow bro and Boomer grouped against the chain link fence

with stammerin' Mikey and their bikes on kickstands to act all cool

after jamming up there to watch the swimmer teens.

And there goes Spence riding out in his shopping cart!

that Webelo Scout with all the beltloops—

He gets a breeze with his skater punks who stunk on the halfpipe,

but if this heat is ever beaten, it's out there with his troops

and his rad Swiss Army knife cutting up screens.

So I retreat from that scene with my best buddy Rand

to get some AC shade away from the sun,

and find that brain in his cramped room playing his Genesis games.

For what hotshot could live without showing off his 16-bit fun

to hide out in vain with his slick bit machines?

His room's got a window fan chugging away with a view

to his big brother's card games through it,

and I start talking through its bladed chops as he brags

about his dad's cherry T-tops all shined up nice in the side yard

that he says are for him one day, but he's full of beans.

Then we hear the tune "Turkey in the Straw"—so we

blow that room and zoom out to the blacktops

as the other kids run on down to empty their pockets at the truck

stopped all chock full of red-white-and-blue rockets, rainbow pops,

King Cones and Drumsticks, as if it was in our genes.

Then a flood where Jamie "Jay" and her brother open up

the hydrant where she's sitting atop and still

now soaking in her tanktop as the gush goes pouring on the road

below her zebra loafers that could stun gun me for the kill and

before the others all get their fill of her by any means.

So Zach’s got out his Super Soaker he filled up at his sink

to soak her down along with anything still pink,

and from there the backyard war is on, the Empire and Rebels,

the aliens and zombies, the terrorists with their Tommys,

because “wetter is better!” beneath the sunscreens.

But then we hear how Dylan's got out his dirt bike

and he's revving it over at the pits and dunes

in the outback of his flat and behind this hood's train tracks,

and what a guy! he let's us fly it high but calls us goons

when face down now before his growling wolverines!

See, Dylan's front yard Dobermans got a short leash

and leopard teeth that'll tear you a new one,

and those beasts have worn out the grass in a circle on the ground,

but he swears they're more effective than his huntin' gun

and I believe him, seeing their full-toothed magazines!

But now he and I spit the new grit from our teeth

as the sun goes down and the lights go up—

a distance contest covered in cool mud where we two sit out

his front porch to chew down some lit stone as the ice cream

tingles blue on my bones now bombed to smithereens!

And summer's never wasted on us Philistines. 

NEXT

--Poems from the Sprawl