newspaper hats before we could read them
pirate ships were easier to build when
digging our way to China salvaging
larvae for insane hatchlings in our heads
our hair cropped for summer like the thorn hedge
chest-naked Pan-like young demiurgers
craving malteds and double cheeseburgers
we were the ones to win the nymphs of creeks
with slingshots and water-guns we’d lay siege
Spiderman’s webs spun tall tales by midgets
treehouses, tall Coke machines, vacant lots
all the buddies I never had now here
my mind the unlikely photographer
on bikes, skateboards, barefoot on hot asphalt
the peachfuzz of Spring in our hubris caught
nudie Mags found in pinestraw pile, my first
full glimpse at a woman’s form a new thirst
and I standing between two pines arms spread
into kudzu vines where skein becomes aged
where peripherals are blurred, birds flurry
a boy’s mind can like a squirrel scurry
the forests of my youth don’t look the same
sentry-like, teeming with too many names
in the creek-beds now there is too much said
between my ears no ships, just dry salvages
– by Joseph Milford
Copyright© 2011 by Joseph Milford. All Rights Reserved.
______________
Joseph V. Milford is a Professor of English at Georgia Military College
south of Atlanta. His first book, Cracked Altimeter, was published in
2010. He is the host of the weekly Joe Milford Poetry Show
(http://joemilfordpoetryshow.com), which he maintains with his wife,
Chenelle. He also edits the literary journal Scythe with his wife from
their shack in rural Georgia. Recently, some bleach replicated the
Shroud of Turin on his favorite black shirt, but he does not believe in
E-Bay.
