Improvisations V After: 'Punch press pull' No Stars Please Music by The Trummerflora
Collective
Can you remember that first drum, the one with the metal rim & those
sticks with their cotton knobs & how you proudly marched around the
living room & the freight train that whistled by at precisely four
thirty every Tuesday & Julie's eyes which were alternately blue &
green & how she taunted you across the fence & her dog Buckskin
who howled into the night & running home to mom with a broken tooth
& no one home & blood in your mouth & the long climb to the
roof where he was hammering away at his homemade boat & Jeremiah practicing
his saxophone & the sun heating the tar to soup & that time Andrea
fell through the skylight & had to be stitched quickly & butterflies
on the milkweed & the sheriff coming after you with a warrant &
everyone staring & pointing their fingers & turning away &
how you left town & hitchhiked to Canada & the waitress who thought
you were from California & offered her bed & stole the money from
your boot & the last day of July when you won sixty on the slots &
caught the bus which crashed in Detroit & the war games with live
ammo & a jazz band on a flatbed & the B & O which ran all
the way home & no one there to meet you except a guy playing bongos
on a bench & a small girl asleep in his lap.
