rugby north dakota
poem about growing up and maybe also existential ocd
I’m six years old and maybe thirteen I wear shoes with rubber souls The earth is pliant beneath my feet And the tar of a four-times-over paved South Lake Avenue takes hold of me And there’s a bruise blossoming after a Beetle flies by And I don’t think about drunk drivers in the summer
I’m years old and Maybe I think nothing of nociceptors The beer can sparkles when it slashes my foot And the dead fish from the shore stare back with glassy eyes And I ask if sand eats rotting flesh And I don’t think there are coyotes in Rugby North Dakota
I’m twenty four years old but I should be six or maybe thirteen I know lots about locked doors and houses for sale There’s a blur on Google Earth where my grandma should be And The Center of My World is just a sometimes-shadow from a piano out-of-tune And the light hardly shines anymore through that stained glass window And I wonder if Mary ever loved Elizabeth
