Latitude/Longitude/Attitude

I picture ripped jeans, red and black

knee patche’d punk rock kids,

shouting at cars driving by:

fuck this!

bollocks that!

anarchy!

And I laugh.

I picture my streets slithering around,

like a snake hugging the ankles

of unaware farmers digging in fields:

My streets create their own romanticism,

their own mysteries begin to unravel like

and undone scarf,

the knit wool slowly and quietly giving way

to the pull of the near spring warmth.

They wrap around

bollocks

My childhood memories, bicycle rides

and walks, getting stares from the punks,

with their skateboards.

Setting is mapped in lots of different ways:

latitude

longitude

attitude.

I wander on,

eying my brown turned hands as a Tootsie

melts into my mouth and on my fingers;

I will manipulate then to picking up stones, sticks,

toys that fell out of trees.

My streets hide me from disasters

like being lost.

I can’t imagine a world where spring doesn’t

feel like this,

where the knot of Poland, Ohio is a tangle

waiting to be sorted out,

by young boys determined to become

explorers.