he poured the remaining Cheerios
into the bowl, then covered them with milk
he need not sniff to know was old,
stale, curdling

still he ate, for he knew without
this sour meal, he would tire on his
mile journey to the bus stop, and
not concentrate in school

his red brick haven, where there
was always running water, porcelain
toilets, adults who didn't reek of
of moonshine, **** and smoke

there he could read under electric
lights, watch movies about the moon
and strange rockets that would one day
blast a man all the way there

another cleaner world he imagined:
a sterile, silent white orb, pocked by boulders
bigger than mountains, craters with names
like Mare Serenitatis, a sea of serenity

that is where he wanted to be
on the dark side of the moon, where
grave gravity looses its reins a bit, hidden
from earth's billions of eyes

and when he dared reveal this
wish in the ears of his elders, they
would whisper among themselves,
saying he was an old soul

but barely double digits, he knew
this could not be so--for his body was only
tired from toil, and as far as his soul,
he knew it had no age, not in years

not here on this wretched third stone
from the sun, nor in a crater as old as time
waiting for him to escape the bounds of earth,
and the bitter milk of morning

Bell County, Kentucky, 1964