Boys in Van Nuys

—Southern California, 1969

We shot birds, squirrels, neighborhood cats;

Shimmied through open windows next door;

Rummaged through closets, dug through drawers.

We discovered we were not the only bandits

On the block:  Others kept their own dark secrets—

The black-and-white pornographer,

His girls our age dressed up as whores,

Their lipstick smeared, their cigarette butts.

Out on the sidewalk one afternoon,

Mrs McDougal shot her husband dead—

Bullets in his thigh, his chest, his head.

From the porch of our house, our mother cried

That dinner was ready, to come inside….

And so we skipped home like men on the moon.

Touchstone, 2007