that summer by Justin Hyde

we'd cut the top off a pop can

one of us would steal a little gasoline
from our father

out on the west edge of the trailer park
tucked up under the highway overpass
like hobos

we'd drop one of our
g.i. joes in the
gasoline bath with
a lit match

silent full

attention

swirling the acrid burning fumes
with wooden sticks

squatting there
that last summer before our dicks got hard

women came

simple truth disappeared

& we turned inscrutable

like our fathers.



Justin Hyde's books and other poems can be found here: http://poets.nyq.org/poet/justinhyde.