Kick the Can

Winter, 2014–2015 / No. 34

Like a ball rolling air

full of ripe openings

and me running fast

from the juice-flying can.

No pain. Just a tin-startled

shock from a path interrupted

and a boy coming forward.

I was fine not feeling a thing.

Just a warm thickening,

as if an egg with the yolk

running red had been cracked.

It was the sauce of me coming out—

metallic lava through

the fork spread of my hands

pulled on and on

by a boy’s sticky screams.