This is Painted Post. No posts are painted here,
no names have importance or meaning.
I could call you Mike,
teach you to shoot a jump shot,
say it’s like Sputnik. Maybe you’re Eman.
Maybe you drive the banana slug
when we go out for pasta at lunch.
I’ll call you Tricia,
tell you that I had a hamster once
but it died. Your name is Alex
and you make me laugh.
Aimee, I want to watch you dance
in Corning, in Horseheads, in Big Flats,
where you’re all nobody now.
Quay doesn’t exist now, or Bobby,
Cass, or Julie. Jon lasted only three
more years. Craig, I left,
we can’t share Kool-Aid or root beer
or cartoon drawings. I sold out,
I left Big Flats behind, the only place
of summer, or woods at the end of the street,
the end of Green Valley Drive.
© 1994 Wayne Pitcher
