baby teeth...

baby teeth

there was the time
I saw the mortal end 
of my ability to be amazed 
under the influence 
of the awe and wonder 
of how a child might feel...

isn't forever supposed to be 
given no circumstances 
other than play...

I was nearing 
the third grade 
it was hot 
and I was digging 
into the ground, 
reveling in the raw scent 
of it beneath my post industrial imagination 
I pretended to see the signs 
under the community clotheslines 
in the center courtyard 
of this snaked bricked row 
subsidized housing complex
I lived at...

I was at one of those poems 
I remember now being written
a post war boom choral civics lesson 
meant for who I would 
come to know 
as a disposable hero...

the incised fantasy
leans start to happen 
when the Sun pulls 
time as tiny knives 
and fingers the air 
school is out 
the asphalt 
and concrete shimmer 
leaps of faith 
want my dark again 
and no matter how far I dig
I am always losing 
my baby teeth

EJR ©