Skate Park Kid
The learning curve arrived at three in the morning
with two armed guards and one unaffected
nurse greeting me near his curtained
guerney. He was raging against
restraints with words like suicide
and speeding car. Oxycontin.
I know when he cries
he cries smaller, grinds longer
rails. He’d pop-shove along Greyhound
bus curbs for a ride back to the coast.
So he says. A box of Pacific
sand in his father’s trunk, Burnside tickets,
that one picture of his mother. Everything he hates
rides with him when he runs. Stay
and meet yourself—I want to tell him.
He was a Sunday born in June, the little boy
without a captain's mask. I see this
when he grinds, when he stand-flips,
when I won’t post his bond.
Sherry O’Keefe, a descendent of Montana pioneers and graduate of MSU-B, is the author of Making Good Use of August (Finishing Line Press). Her most current work has appeared or is forthcoming in Camas, Switched-on Gutenberg, THEMA, Terrain. Org., PANK, Avatar Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Prick of the Spindle, Inkwell, Pirene’s Fountain, Tygerburnin, The High Desert Journal and Main Street Rag. Currently working on a full collection, Cracking Geodes Open, she is the poetry editor for Soundzine. Come talk with her: http://www.toomuchaugust.wordpress.com.
Poetry | Fiction | Non-Fiction | Photography