Memorial Day

I shook Big Jim Thompson's hand
and it was all Dolton
had to give the earth.

A parade.

This and the
public pool;
The K-Mart and its
knives;
the fathomless railyard
pressing up against the overpass:
The path to church.
That old long door swinging open.

The grass still grew prairie-long then,
past imagined saddles.

And

Those maps
and folds
and demarcations
gone diffuse
in the taconite black,
harbored
between each
star;

the truth of molten
glow in transit
across sleepless walls.

My skinny legs
grew strong
along the tracks.

Taking
a beating
was the same
as learning how to fight.

I wondered,

what parts of this life are secret?
What parts of me
have their meaning
in the way

I care about the curve
of roads
and the grain of bark,
and tie,

opening,

opening?

My transgressions
piled up.

My worlds ended.

My questions gathered:
"Who am I, and who am I to say?"

Etc.

That cold hand
of the child of me
rests still
on railing
after railing.