summer boys
BY JOHN SIBLEY WILLIAMS
And we came to a series of rifts
machines gouged from the land
to expose its rawer materials. Down
the granite slopes following the bicycles
we stole from neighboring lawns
— ah the simple joy of wheels
learning what it’s like to stop
spinning — our bodies
stripped to the waist and ready
for the river the rains had made
from such deep hollows.
As this is a childhood edited
by memory I can tell you nothing
much about the crash and ripple
when we broke the surface
or the panic when those wings
we assumed would spread from
our shoulders failed to catch the current.
When the girls came later
to fan their blankets out
over the castoff rocks
and change the shape of
their bodies beneath our bodies,
I can only tell you there were martins
arguing with the distant huff of horses
while beside us the radio cracked on
and off about missile-lit cities
in countries we’d someday learn
to pronounce. Children there lost in man-
made quarries. Spokes rusting in place.
