Sugar
By way of the opening in our fence
my daughter slips a notice
to a boy with buzzed hair
and scabby elbows, the son
of a neighbor I’ve not met
and, realizing me, by no means will.
Whereas he reads, she kneels
within the slatted patch of shade,
plucking a blade of grass,
brushing it towards her lip.
Who was it who stated childhood
is simply sugar slowly melting?
They do that for an hour—
the passing and the happiness
and the grass on the lips.
They by no means converse to 1 one other.
They by no means as soon as look by way of the opening
to see the opposite’s face.
Testimony
When the child from Memphis
who would later get expelled
for whittling bar cleaning soap right into a shiv
and stabbing the college librarian
requested me if I needed to see one thing cool,
I didn’t the truth is wish to see one thing cool.
From him (probably from everybody)
I needed the other: to be left alone
within the area of crabgrass and clay
that gathered itself like a bruise
on the fringe of our playground.
I needed to spend recess discovering
a brand new form of bug, or making phrases
within the dust with cracked sticks and gravel.
I needed to spend it rehearsing what lies
I’d inform my mom throughout dinner
when she requested about the very best a part of my day.
Transportation—that was one thing cool.
As an alternative I received a child from Memphis,
who eliminated a blue tip match from his pocket,
stated, Wager your dumb ass can’t do that,
and struck it towards his entrance tooth,
which jutted awkwardly out from his gums,
all crooked and too-big and grey,
an inexpensive tombstone askew in its plot.
You realize precisely how cool this trick was.
But, you probably have survived an American childhood,
you additionally know historical past takes the form you give it.
Ask me, then, about the very best a part of my day,
and I’ll let you know in regards to the fireplace between us.
The way it hissed after which sputtered, dancing
like a hermit in the dead of night cave of his cupped hand.
Say we watched it die collectively.
Say after it did, he had a pocket stuffed with matches.
Dan Leach has revealed poems in The Southern Overview, The Massachusetts Overview, and The Solar. He’s the recipient of Texas Overview Press’s Southern Poetry Breakthrough Award, and his assortment Stray Latitudes was launched in 2024. He lives on the coast of South Carolina, the place he teaches writing at Charleston Southern College.
Header photograph by Nina Drozdowa, courtesy Shutterstock.
