Southern/Minded I

growing up Southward

Wishes—blades of grass,
that tire swing when
we were young. Do you remember
all the hustle or the child
you’d become? I can
still taste all the honeysuckles’
sweat from where we rode.
On bikes and on our dreams,
oh how we drifted through the night
as kindergarten wolves;
Eventually, some go
alone.

I walk these byways
lonely now—
those wishes, they cut deep.
I creep off into suburbs wrought
from Nature’s false antiques.
But here I see a tire swing!
There, honeysuckle paint
gesturing like a long lost friend
just one street down the road.