I. That summer the radio Played nothing but Cat Stevens While I hummed harmonies In my first car It was a wild world indeed when kudzu overtook The cornfields All the ears were foreigners The leaves basked in light That dead-ended on route 15
II. That fall we spotted UFO's Shining over the municipal Park We chased them across the Ballfields To the high school cross country course A dirt track running Through the woods And when there was nothing Alien lurking there Our hopes fell Faster than the stars
III. The following winter Three inches of ice cut the powerlines Impounded our school supplies With the outtages And the temperatures plummeting Seventy percent of our hearts froze All the parts that were water Expanding our chests Like balloons Expanding our vision too We thought this was the beginning Of the end of St. Clair county We though we'd all get out someday
IV. By spring the graveyard smelled Like lilacs And dead town elders Came out to dance in the scent We played capture the flag there On school nights And the cops could never catch us Behind the headstones Of our family plots We wrote our own epitaphs "I was water and I could have been A fine wine" *I fell asleep in sweet green clover to the sound of smalltown sirens...