nathan

So happy Aaron shared this poem with me. I love it.


Nathan


Sixteen and you
meant bad, cousin. Took me
with you, part of a summer

watching you filch tokens
from the till at the arcade,
skinny bottles of Mad Dog

in the pockets of all your friends,
that black Camaro,
the nights still and warm.

I didn't understand
why we had to slip
through the narrow window

in whispers and dew
to rage against the empty streets,
ghost-drag through town

with heads full of metal, smoke
in our eyes. Clatter of milk
crates behind the Safeway

where you hollered sweet
nothings at the sodium light.

-Aaron Jorgensen Briggs