Charlatans stubbing their faces on the doors of their pseudonyms
The five sucker punches, the night of hustling reduced to dust,
collecting, they are clots today
The kids in their striped white and green scarves, their boomboxes and christened pieces, the bongs they named Yoshimi, Dewdrop, Craig
Their paradoxical nature: white, or white in stature, in love with hip hop, the instrumentals
They skateboard home strung out on the drugs they'd made last night in their bathtubs
They are greying, on the throws of identity crisis, with the silver lining in the memories of playground pebbles and the way the smell stayed dry and stuck to their hands,
her Mary Janes against the wood on her way to confession, in the church, Shirley Temple taps, more hail Mary's than she could remember for tongue kissing her best friends, they were girls, every sunday,
Under the bell tent of monotony and cynicism they forgot all about celestial homework and secret names, forgot about the current state of things,
They used to talk of revolution
One hour photo developing was reserved today
For the married man in his bare merriment, being served, less serving
Took less credible shots with a one time use camera of the hooker's back while she dressed when they were done, innocent she thought
And he felt his own dirt
in his own mouth
And reaching into his pocket as he paid he knew if only he'd used the old Spectra, film in the glove box,
He might've been able to save the last of his dignity, though sacrificing the knuckled guise of masculinity, more importantly
his cigarette money
Don't be silly Mom, I can do anything
We used to say
The bow back whales can live to be 200 years old,
Mom lived till 56
And left us hurricane lamps, mirrors, Joni Mitchell records, her coffee cups, no written words unless we were willing to count the olive oil stained recipes
And we knew that we would
For the singular sake
of the always