Summer Bones

Tough feet, hot cement, cracked lips, drug tongue
My bones slithered down my back as I greeted the Texas summer
Chinese pear trees with seeds like stones and frozen lemon cubes were my meal
Oh childhood nostalgia!
It loves and it hates!
It feeds on your insides and festers in your mind when you look on the street you grew up on
You stare down the relentless traffic lines and broken telephone poles
Little white crosses that line the freeways and little Mexican homes bursting with pride
Roads that muster dust and chewed tobacco and lemony scented pine sol
Ode to be a Texan in the humidity
So forget your shoes at home and your Chinese made cloths
And your candle scented children with their innocent grins and below average schools
Forget the night and the used tissues in the trashcan
Dance with the slimy frogs of East Texas swamps and kiss the feet of swaggering Confederates
Eat your gritz and corn on the cob with style and let the rough bark grab you between the fingers
Bake in the sun and sweat the water sprinkler that children play in
Listen to the screams of the ocean and mutated catfish that gobble your cat food
Run over the fluffy tailed squirrels in your pick-up truck so the kids will dissect it with mother's eyebrow tweezers
Jump into an evaporating tire swing and feel the sweet burn
Back burner dance, back burner dance with my juke box like you once did
Drink down my southern accent and chink the ceramic cups of the pacific
Point fingers while the children bury their bones in the backyard
Because they know summer is almost over
Vacation is at its end
And when it hits, it hits like a mom slapping a father
And when they come back to the next summer they come back with scars and bruises
Their vision a bit blurry from the nonsensical crap fed to them in love songs
And they'll dance and dance and dance
 

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