Saturday, January 8, 2011

poem viii. (in three letters)

(b)
my kid brother says
fuck this, i'm running away
he looks at me with big eyes
you can help me get a gun, yeah?

don't be ridiculous
i can't milk clients for that kind of shit
(and you wouldn't last an hour on the street)

i can't take it, he says

welcome to adolescence

then-
i'll go to the country! he declares
babycakes, this ain't dharma bums
you can't make yourself a pack on a stick

and cartwheel trains into the woods
where you're alone with the wolves
and a can of beans, cracked open over flame


they will find you

i'm a boyscout, he says
(which has everything
take on a different light)

he shows me the bag he's packed:
a rubber-banded wad of one-dollar bills, a whittling knife,
fruit leather, slim jims
twine and nail scissors
duct tape, rope

bandages and a pack of syringes

a thickly handled blade in a leather case,

a compass


they'll never find me


i'll fashion bows, net minnows
i'll hunt-and-gather,

flint-and-steel my way to freedom

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