Look at us go. A gang of four awkward-toothed boys dragging our red bread wagon around. Hometown heroes with bouquets of flour. For a little green, you can slice the cellophane. Yeast in your nose and warm butter dripping.
Biking down Delaware. Left on Broad. Autumn’s vermillion blanket on the ground. John Deere and Orson Welles. Maybe in some fanfiction they were ******* behind the Casey’s General Store. Turning the soil to bury secrets. There’s an art in that. The rottweiler’s snarl is pulled back inside as the door closes.
My cousin lost an eye and I saw it floating in a jar like a marble on his nightstand. When it snowed I wondered if he only saw half of the flakes.
Before you left we each took a sharpie to a dollar bill: “FRIENDS 4 EVER”. Thirty years later it’s still tucked away in a little white box with a Michael Jordan valentine and mirrored blue marble. Something plucked from my childhood and I only remember half of it.
I found an old letter I wrote to you. November 8, 1993. 11:24 a.m. Nineteen minutes after my grandmother died.
“I miss you and hope that I can come visit sometime”
That winter was lonely. I climbed our sledding hill in my moon boots and as I looked across the tundra, I thought: I’m the last hometown hero.
“Ever since you left things have been pretty boring around here and I’ve been stuck in my house reading books”
I flew down that hill in my plastic saucer. The wind pulling every tear from my eyes.
“My pictures are in the envelope, when you write me a letter please write neatly”
When my sled hit the curb on Ridge Road I swear I kept flying. I’d say I never looked back, but that’s all I’ve been doing these days.