IN CLEVELAND, in 1965
 
Emmett restores my faith
in all that is good and true
by pulling a scooter
from the dumpster at school
and pronouncing it perfect 
despite a rusty fender 
and frayed grey duct tape 
covering the hand grips.

This baby will drift, 
he assures me,
and while I have no idea 
what a drifting scooter does,
to do so is clearly a good thing 
in the eyes of a newly-rich boy.
 
My brother and I furnished
backyard scrap-wood forts 
from items left on the curbs 
of Piermont Road every Tuesday,
in Cleveland, in 1965.
 
Never a ripped chair more luxurious
than in our backyard bunker.
Never did boys recline more regally 
than we did on trash day treasures, 
in Cleveland, in 1965.

Poem Notes: When my sister Amy read this poem, she reminded me that our mother re-finished a shelf Amy rescued from someone’s trash in Cleveland. My sister kept that shelf until she moved into her first apartment after graduating college. Our forts weren’t haunted, but I sure did read a lot of Hardy Boys books in those days. I checked and Franklin W Dixon is still churching them out . . . he must be 143 years old by now!

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A New Poem on Mondays!

Joseph Neely, all rights reserved