— after Erika L. Sánchez

Summer morning bike rides to play a borrowed baritone.
Two-player cheat codes and the whole afternoon.
Rows and rows of useless shit: Fridays at the farm town auction.
Hee Haw laugh track, steak dinners on TV trays.
Dead buck next to a barbed wire fence, one clean cut to the throat.
Emmy Lou Harris LPs spinning on Sunday mornings.
Hoping to glimpse a nipple on HBO.
The easy pass of wine coolers on weekend afternoons.
Running up for a gulp of Pepsi, learning it’s an ash can.
Making out behind the junior high until everyone’s lips are raw.
Voice of Dan Dierdorf narrating Monday Night Football.
Discussing guns at Christmas, the year Santa brought Mom a toaster.
Climbing atop the Lions Club, sheriff yelling at us from his car.
Realizing the magazine in black plastic was the one with naked women.
School-sanctioned roller skating to the beats of Jon Bon Jovi.