Treasure recycled

Dig into the recent past with me and find

a cache of inventor’s dreams. We readjust

the creative waves and sift through the boxes

of wealth hidden in plain view at the back of

the parking lot, back of the elementary school,

boxes someone dared to label recycle—

waste of space. We fit into those spaces

like best friends do, more snug than our shoulders

around each other like the Golden bridge spanning

oceans and our dancing ideas—add

the final touches to the gumball machine,

tighten the gears and flip

through the blueprints to our trio. Forget your crisp

fears of fire drills, muse on the treasures

we looted like ancient libraries, ours

for the taking on the tail end

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

of summers like this.

Sixth-grade style

Your distaste dictates the weather, flaming gray

clouds like the coattails of some other kind

of storm. Turn other heads—mine is throwing

down the foundations of outer space, racing

the strings of comets with fleets of rockets and ships.

But you remember that one time? I was loitering

on the grounds, surrounded by the shadows of gym

plastic, gray and stern like stop signs when it

happened. I was wearing that new hat,

the nice one

fresh from the trucks and trains, new tags hanging

off it like streamers in a parade when it happened.

And that’s when you noted casually the flight

of strange birds, black and white like chess pieces,

rocketing down like man eager to conquer the moon,

sights set on the hat, the nice one, the new one.

And like a stage man at the close, I swept

the hat off my head, holding it above

me like the sun as I bowed toward the grass. And although

you’d never put words to the soccer ball incident,

I saw the way your eyes lit up, eyebrows raised

like train crossings. Style that shocked us both

like light-struck night bugs.