Tom
Petty & the Heart Breakers knew
the distance between heaven & hell
is in the handcuffs of the hanged suicide.
the distance between heaven & hell
is in the handcuffs of the hanged suicide.
The
voice of America rings out loud & clear
in
this unique anthology of great
American
poetry
is
what I read to her
the
first night we kissed.
No
shit.
Somewhere,
somehow, somebody
must've
kicked you around some,
&
so on.
She
stole a bottle of her bruised mother's best
Patron,
and we tipped it under Crockery Creek's dead bridge.
We
listened to Tom Petty & the Heart Breakers
on
the 8-track in my old man's pickup.
Oh,
Jesus Christ & Holy Ghost & God Almighty—
we
got down with that music.
Ravenna,
Michigan, was cold & wet that spring.
Going
home past midnight, the pickup kicked
&
slid down muddy Rollenhagen Road.
Oh,
sweet Jesus,
the
washboard roads of my youth
gave
me a school bus hard-on twice a day.
Each
morning walking high school hallways,
I
held my books across my zipper
like
the groin-protector I wore
years
later patrolling alleys in Iraq.
She
wrote things in her diary
I
can't think about right now,
but
she wrote things
I
read after her mother found her
hanging
in the garage.
I
saw her dive
naked
from the high banks of Crockery Creek.
I
saw her dive
&
kiss that destiny.
Don't
come around here no more.
Hey.
Give
it up.
Stop.
Don't
come
no
more.
