Canadian Geese, and: Two Truths and a Lie

Canadian Geese

I hate their Vs        in flight and I hate them                standing, wings opened

wide as they balance on gross bird feet        and I hate that they lay eggs                and shit and I don't want

to know why it's green        and scuffed and scattered                over every field

I ever ran across as a child, uniformed        in a rank jersey and shin guards; it's disgusting,                why I had to run

again and again across the pitch:        to chase the geese off before                a soccer game, to avoid

the boys that were always fast, always        so much faster than me, always coming                closer so I'd take off

across Green Acres, that rutted collection        of grassy clover behind the high school, pocked                and sprayed with faded chalk lines

and I'd run to the tree line,        underbrush colonized by the fucking geese                and their nests, so aggressive

while I had only mucked cleats and a stick        for defense, terrorized and terrified                and no, I never offered anything

not even a gulp of spring water        or a quartered orange, just covered                my ears against their awful sound,

all of the terrible noise        they made, honking and hissing                with their dry black tongues.

Two Truths and a Lie

I

We smoked because the boys did. We smoked Marlboro Reds. We'd light our Reds because the boys did, our Bics bright, sticking out the tight back pockets of our jeans because the boys liked to look and we liked to see the boys look because the boys did and because what could we have done to stop them? The way to the gas station was a path paved in our boys, in our smoke and compact mirrors. We swung plastic bags of candy bars because the boys did and because the boys did it, we let them kiss our open mouths, our lips tinted red as KitKat wrappers, as a thank you come again, as the OPEN sign glowing in the Exxon's dark window.

II

We were running. We were rundown. They ran us out of our woods

~

It was a test run. The river ran dry

~

What ran through our veins was never sap, syrup, sugar-sweet like

~

I ran my mouth, it runneth over. The boy who threatened still ran his hands across me even when

~

We ran out of cash, counted coins. Sometimes it was enough

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We ran a six-minute mile but they could still do it in less. We raced, we flew, we scrammed

~

We went running to our dads who threatened to pick a switch

III

in the stillness that followed	our fathers pruned
and copsed	punished and grafted
us into	branch and bud
cambium	shunned and rooted
we had run and	the risk was
red	red
we burned	ruin