Saturday night
Risk
Friends gathered
Cheerios for markers
We ate the armies – laughing
without a care.
Ellen was a redhead
A friend I wondered
new to the crew
of teenagers
through the smoke
that would get you time
if busted in the glovebox
of Dad’s Rambler
or was it a Pinto?
I can’t remember,
until she ran – wild
not laughing
escaping barefoot
into the night
and gone no mention
of why she ran,
Perhaps it was the laughter
or the smoke or maybe
it was just the skipping needle
in the middle of Stairway
anthem staccato pings
piercing our long lost years.
I wonder if she remembers
or ever returned
to retrieve her sneakers.
ml’26
(original image by No_Longer_Here at pixabay.com)