New Kids on the Block

If the spaces under the highway
had been a passage to a great
underground city, I’d still be there
living among the mole people,
still listening to your sister’s cassettes.

It was always over as soon as it started,
and I longed for you for years after.
The gas station stopped selling gas;
it’s just as well. I don’t drive that way
anymore and I don’t want the salty chips
we used to get before spending afternoons
listening to music at your house.

You’ve grown too great for me to see
and I’ve started shrinking into the cracks,
barely leaving a mark behind to find.
I’ll see you at the next protest
on the steps of the state capital.
I wonder if I’ll still be visible by then.

Notes

Written 15 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “New Kids on the Block” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)