Mordar
It was behind St. Joseph’s, across an open field, hay and earth,
The last traces of green gone, poised toward the vernal equinox.
We jumped the fence, lugging a six-pack of Schmidts and a pipe,
A small bag with something, maybe hash or Thai Sticks or the like.
My heavy coat and construction boots (the original Doc Martens)
Made the climb arduous, my frosty breath smoking the fence links.
Once inside, we padded hard earth silently beckoning the woods
But we stopped short of the line of its entry, dark and foreboding.
There we found a rock or a wooden crate I imagine 40 years later;
We were only 15 and 17 but our imaginations were medieval, dark.
Our laughter echoed midway between the shadows of forest and
Tombstones, an open field bordering pine trees and the cemetery.
In our inebriation, we told stories and giggled tirelessly, of Mordar
And the one true ring, borne by a stranger and thief; we spoke Elf.
When the laughter turned fear, our hilarity distorted into wild flame
Of lying youth, blood pumping black hash and cheap beer illusion.
We fled like bandits past Gollum and ghosts, teen-age and death,
Flung over metal chains clanging on that chill, October night’s end.
The 31st, in fact, all Hollow’s Eve, we, two time leapers in flight,
Memorized the words emblazoned on our half-baked wild minds.
Like wind we inscribed air with our fright, leaping child over adult,
We two, Puerto Rican-Mexican-Irish and Russian-Rumanian-Jew.
Though you stayed in New York, and I moved across the nation, our frozen fingers touch in dreamless daymares of loss and time.
We chuckle yet, our minds’ eyes gleaming with the thrill of it then
As we dream the deceit of a linear past; I know you’re with me still.
