Days of 1992

A poem from my college workshop

Days of 1992

The days of 1992
did him no more harm than
the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs
he would eat for breakfast.

He remembers a house with brick façade
below a second story of vinyl siding;
a flower garden bordered by invasive strawberries;
a wooden swing set with a broken yellow slide;
icicle lights hanging with one section dark
and a new snow that covers them all.

The fresh snow and his comic book idol, Calvin,
inspired him to careen down hills
with no mind to the ride-ending trees,
or the icy gulch at the end of each run.

He never sat still in class,
and always stared out the window.
He etched shapes into his desk,
and drew stick-figure battles in the margins
of every assignment he was given.
He was labeled a trouble-making child,
and only his after-school day-care instructor, Mr. Ike,
(liked for his Vietnam war stories)
saw that he was just too smart.
His mind would always wander,
because he was simply bored in class.
No matter, he moved away that summer.