There is a holy place for boyhood memories

Deep between the ribs of bleached modern cynicism

A place we cover with expensive clothes and

Fleeting pleasure

 

A place where carousels circle alongside veins and ventricles

Spinning out hours of happiness like

Flowing golden yarn

There, joy is never threadbare.

 

There, curiosity is a meal placed on laminated placemats

Scoured by the silver utensils of culinary Mars rovers

For mad scientists made of plastic

 

There, the best way to pass time

Is to gnaw like a feral animal at loose teeth,

In the hope of intimidating your gums into surrender

And when you finally taste victory

It feels like an empty enemy trench

Scarred by the artillery of your tongue

 

There my mother plays the piano

And I smash decidedly at the lowest note possible

Letting the echo reverberate over the melody

 

Part of me is always there

Beneath impenetrable layers of desire

And desperate disillusionment

Running aimlessly over the

Armored beetle-shell brown of scorched summer ground

Hair soaked in sweat

Long grass tickling at my ankles

 

And after I've exhausted myself

the reticulation of my back

snaps, Every vertebra a book

read aloud by my dad through the collar of a bathrobe

The giver of those leafy literary wings

that wingspan around my head

Composed of the pearly shards of lost souls and dead mens' unfinished manuscripts

Pages fluttering into the warm wind

feathers tattooed with William Blake

flying in fearful symmetry

Me singing the songs of innocence

With no regard for tuning

Only the pitch and yaw of youthful flight

 

And of course I say this with a chuckle now

Wings tucked under a layer of plaid,

Clothed in fraying vanity,

But part of me is there

Laughing at myself

And living in the golden warmth

That I can now only weave

By writing

And flying

On battered wings.