When my grandfather was young
the cool thing to do was blow up pa**ing fascist German trains,
the ones that shipped the war machine across Lithuania.
When we were young
the cool thing to do was Pogs.
I had this one bright silver slammer,
with a hammer stamped on its face,
whose only occupation was wreckage.
What great rebellion can be made
in those towers of cardboard circles collapsing,
like an old People into new languages.
Games can be made out of anything.
Kick a rock.
A soup can.
A small boy,
until blood pours from his noise
like oil from a derailed train across its tracks.
Oh, youthful exuberance!
Oh, boys in packs roaming the great outbacks.
Many mad sadnesses.
Gra** stains and marijuana doused in hairspray.
Rope swings knotted around the neck.
Yes, in every age boys will be buoyant.
Will be thrown in Life's white water
and expected to glide clean across its gla** face.
Will find an object to hate,
and take it apart with their hands.
This one time,
it was a boy.
And when we were done he was so quiet,
all we could hear was the thin whistle of his blood.
You can stand on a highway and look in one direction
and see the red flicker of your birth.
You can look the other way
straight into the white headlights of oncoming traffic.
Yes, when I was a child I spoke as a child–
I think Christ said that.
Or Paul.
Or King James.
Or maybe I made it up.
Whoever said children speak with their mouths, anyway?