We used to bike to the river
a couple miles from home,
fishing rods and tackle boxes
balanced on bike handles,
teetering on back roads,
around blind corners, corn stalks
the only other living things
lasting as far as any scream could carry.
We didn't think of screams then,
just how long it would take
to get home.
                 I drive those roads
now, in a place as forgotten
as it can be while still known.
I find my old house, my old school,
none of the people there. Seeing
where I rode I find a kernel of the fear
I didn't have, hiding in shadows
and truck grills and endless fences,
wire charged and ticking at weeds
grown high at the crumbling road edge.
I see with eyes clearer for their age.
I smell rot
                 I couldn't know then.
When did I decide the world
was a place to guard against?
Surely we have not become more cruel,
just more obvious. What truck
once barreled by, gave a second look,
that I missed, balancing my cup
of worms, pole, the box of hooks
sharp and hanging from bodies
meant to lure, to deceive, to trap.