There was this tree bent over
a finger of water that flowed
into the mill pond where my brother
and I, and some mill boys would
fling ourselves off buck naked,
and one day Mama found me out,
and I cried said I wouldn’t
do it again, and at her eulogy
recalled this moment, and afterward
while driving to mother’s house
to nap one more time watch tv
one more time a light dawned
not unlike the light of how
a child’s toy using a wheel
may have found its way into
the making of the first
ox cart millenniums later,
or when I figured out
the dash of the Taurus
I had been driving for
two years had a button,
and curiously pushed it
the trunk popped open
it hit me— mother
never came to the pond.
and my other brother,
my older brother
who was not
at the pond that day
must have
ratted us out wait
till I get my hands
on him.