Two cycle oil & gasoline.
Poison ivy & gravel rashes.
We weren’t paid to work the farm
but once in a while
Dad got a wild hair at an auction
& returned with some shit
in the back of the pickup.
“Lookit this, boys. Go-cart.
Just needs a pull cord.” Or a
flat-tired Honda whose brakes
are shot but steers mostly straight.
A frame of angle iron with
four wheelbarrow tires & a chainsaw
motor. Pulleys and belt, a seat
from a Farmall Super C.
Minibike with a lawnmower engine.
That one motorcycle you had to push,
down the hill and Bang! Off you go.
Dubious clutches.
Manual brakes.
A hedge of lilacs to catch you.
For the youngest a fat-tired moped,
almost a cycle, three gears & automatic.
Throttle & go, laps around & around
the barnyard. “Just don’t go on the road.”
But the oldest ones, of course, did.
Blue smoke cloud snarling
on the shoulder, the ditches
to Muska’s tire shop.
Buy a cold soda pop.
Drink it there because Lud Muska
wanted the bottle back.
Sunday off from milking to chores,
a day of blue smoke hanging over us
like unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes.
The way we ran dusty turns &
turnovers, gravel & dogs barking
& eventually escaped by
less excitable forms.
Somehow got married,
stayed married to raise hard
working sons and daughters plus
some beautiful & sassy & able
to manipulate Daddy any day.
Dads, siting at the picnic table,
dozing & drinking beers, smiling
at each other.
Do you remember?
Man, do I ever. Crazy times.
Men with chuffing laughs &
the same eyes, same as the
grandkids got, part amused,
part wary. Comparing memories
instead of paychecks. Telling
stories until nothing else to remember
is left out, car wreck & funeral,
cousins up from the city.
Safer topics than that farm,
the rough collection of motorized
bits strewn into memory.
Eyes slide to one another &
a small nod of approval, yeah,
at least we never
hit our kids.
POETRY FESTIVAL. Submit to site for FREE. Submit for actor performance. Submit poem to be made into film. 