The new firehouse  stands where the old
Hardshell church used to be stationed,
and across the road new houses
have replaced the once fallow field
where the Methodist tent meeting
took place when I was twelve years old,
accountable for my wanton
gaze, at the cheeks exposed by shorts
that would not have been allowed on
Sunday morning this Friday night,
if you took the freewill doctrine
unpopular now in circles
philosophical,  canted like
the hooks we used to turn sawlogs
on the carriage where I offbeared
in the summer and after school,
saving cash I would one day use
to court those long-legged ladies.