—YOU TURN MY 6'S TO 9'S

 

Rushmore

 

We were cemetery kids 

unafraid of anything 

but our impulses or luck

like how Gordy took out every 

car windshield in our 

middle school parking lot 

that fall when it felt 

like summer cheated us again

or how Eddy used a pair of

brass knuckles them heavy 

ones that feel lighter 

than they look to beat the cousin 

his sister said raped her 

 

We drank our beers 

cold or warm it didn’t matter 

because we knew what others didn’t 

that the world was flat as a marine’s high-top

with a drop off ledge that sucks 

you off it same as a pastor talking sin 

while going on and doing 

what he did to some of us

 

And me I knew I always

blinked too much or too fast when 

they asked about my mom how 

she was feeling but never

mentioning the bruises or lost teeth 

but that’s years gone by now

before the fire and these bars 

the bare wall staring back at me

like a headstone someone made too large

like Rushmore with no faces on it