Were you alive when the
bricks began to crumble
beneath our hand-held, kiss
puppets?

Our mumbled whispers
that tapered ladders on gargantuan folds and slung-held
boy-grips.

Cohorts torn into flip stands
layered toward standing sores --
tell me how to cross rapid waters of social trends.

We were strung up the flag pole, almost posted as decapitated heads for the public.

Under teeming hammer-strikes :
glasses shred to paper-splinters
before a car crying white chalk bricks
onto saran-wrapped concrete.

There were antennas perched like speckled,
mangy feathers,
poised, reflecting defiance toward
the wool-ashed sky.

With dirt-trekked journey marks,
there were trees growing silver hair outside the grocery store --
and frown-marked women -- that skin-folded
war paint -- yelled at their daughters to pay attention.