Topic: Verse
When I was ten these streets were crooked still,
And I could have walked them with my eyes closed
From corner to corner. I knew every house
Along the streets, and who lived in them too,
And that the old man who sat on the stoop
Of the small house across the street from ours
Had soldiered in France with Black Jack Pershing,
And didn't like kids.
I knew the trace of the territory
Behind the houses—the lots and thickets—
The places where the fences had been gapped—
The triangle of fallen logs I called
A fort—which trees were easiest to climb—
And where a fire might be safely laid.
I knew the paths between the broad back yards,
And all the shortcuts.
I knew the way to the sluggish river
Where bottles did duty for battleships,
Shattering under my salvos of stones.
I knew the way across the wooden dam
Into the sad patch of forest beyond
The railroad tracks on which I laid my ear
In passing to listen for a train that might
Flatten a penny.
I knew where high white ramparts would be heaped
By the muscular plows. From those bastions
I would snowball passing trucks from ambush.
I knew where the pond ice would be rotten
On the first of March, and how to cross it
At a dead run, with the wind in my face,
Over the deep, over the low stone wall,
To the field beyond.
Now there’s a superstore where that field was,
And the bastards have straightened all the streets.
