we were twelve and we packed thirteen passion-fruit juice boxes,
crackers and peanut butter because who can survive without peanut butter?
the three long hours we were
walking then
running then catching our breath at the corner of
Kennedy and Lincoln.

having lunch in a ditch and rolling down hills and
I can remember everything.
I bet you can too, the

cars screaming past us on the highway and the
darker it got the faster we scrambled and we ended up
exactly where we started but

we tried to run away and we returned
not with our tails drooping between our legs but
stick-straight and in the air because
we'd had adventure for the first time,
we'd crossed the street holding each-
other's hands, not
our mother's anymore.

and I wish I was
in that ditch again,
with you sticking your fingers in the peanut butter because we forgot a knife

not with you, "dead in a ditch somewhere"
like they say you are.