When I was five, I loved to ride my skateboard
when I was six, it was my bike
when I was seven it was roller skates.

I loved to mow yards and make money
My friends and I used to put on plays
My dad would hag blankets around the porch
and set up chairs in the yard
We charged a nickel admission
and my mom made Kool-Aid and cookies
for an intermission snack

We had two olive trees in the front yard
I loved to climb them. My dad
had to rescue me once.

We had lemon and lime trees,
orange trees and an avocado orchard behind us
It wasn’t ours, but I used to sneak over the wall
and get some.

I remember the elderly man down the street
used to come pick our figs and bring me and my brother
candy for letting him pick them. I think his wife
made fig preserves.

We lived in Los Angeles a block away
from the Los Angeles River.
We weren’t supposed to ride our bikes
in the river beds…but we did.