What Kids Do

 Feels like forever is settling down.

The cold has a hard edge to it.

The Good Son is angry and cold.

Like a fist of ice. The Good Son tried so hard.

He was spanked and his mouth was washed out with soap

for saying 'motherfucker'. And my hair gets cut so I look like

a marine. Flat top, the machine mowing its way up the back

of my neck. Then my friend tells me he is different because

of the color of his skin while he shows me his hand,

his brown hand. I don't know what to say, I feel shocked.

And still don't except 'motherfucker'. I still see Vernon's face

looking at me. My parents are standing over me, before,

and their legs are so long. I know they are the power.

And I am not, or am I?

 

We don't see our cat Kitty, for a few months and

in the spring I'm crawling under the front porch

on Baring Street and find Kitty, stiff, leaning

against the house and I know she was trying

to get warm in her last long moments.

I got my little brother and some friends and 

we did a burial in the backyard, because I 

knew that's what kids do.

I went back to that backyard a couple years ago

because my friend was renovating the house,

and he needed some help carrying a gigantic

I-beam from the truck. We stood around

waiting for the truck, it was stuck in traffic

for a while.