hermano, amigo
I don’t gots nothing more
but words for you …
an open invitation
like the blanket I hung
as a door when we lived
side by side, all the places
where we were young together
.
even these things are leaving
us now,
that we don’t talk,
that you can’t call
to say “I love you too”
now that I’m just another
Facebook friend or bit I.M.
.
Te acuerdas,
remember how we met?
¿como todo paso?
.
how by accident your mother
bought the house across the street
from ours? How twelve years
earlier we had both surprised
our fathers and bent their tomorrows.
.
¿Que cosas, no?
.
that so much had to go,
had to break a certain way
to find us playing tag in
the summertime, dodging
between cars or playing kick the can
and waiting for the street lights
to turn on.
.
Te acuerdas como nos conocimos?
.
You doing your imitation of John
Travolta from Saturday Night Fever
and singing the Bee Gees’
“Staying Alive”
to mock whoever the hell was “it”
… except me …
we were already running as a team
.
Ploying silently to keep the
rest at bay, pushing to be better
than each other because no one
wanted to be Robin, because
we both felt absolutely golden,
whenever we were together,
you were Larry and I was Magic
even though our skin said
we had it backwards
… we knew better
.
Ya tu sabes!
.
So here’s a list that only
you will understand with your
decoder ring and secret index
of punchlines and memories
.
Pink Champale and Greased Lightning,
Lower Grant and their mutant bigs,
Hershey Park spinning on its side,
Reggie, the bleachers and spaghetti,
Willie on the train and the fucking fractions,
Missions to van Sicilen, Crescent or Norwood
The middle of winter and a rat’s nest,
Pitufas and soft shelled crabs,
The Dominican outback needing dancers,
Fernando in the ambulance,
Shoeless football, stir fry and home grown,
Seafood Mamajuanas, Billy Joel and
about a million other words I could
string together to hang around our necks
like totems signifying we know
exactly what they meant.
.
But we don’t.
.
We have our own stories, no?
Even if we shared that
glory time so long ago, all things
can gather enough dust
to be covered in the end.
.
Te acuerdo, te amo, te extraño.
.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2011. All rights reserved.
words with no names 