We knew the slab knee of the electrical tower,
out there furthest from the spillway,
would be the perfect spot.
A line of dry tiretracks crosses the lakebed
like the wandering prints of some lone dog.
We're not the first car to snap
these cracked plates of crusted mud,
I think that was Pinnick last week his
brother's such an ass.
We scramble up a scum of algae,
careful through the barbwired hole.
Beer now, piss later, we gloat like
three snipers on a cement lookout.
We're careful not to sit
in the birdshit puddleslick,
god that smells.
The towers stride like gods,
red cyclops eyes shining skywards.
The wires swoop above us and away.
The drafted curve of tension, air,
power, grace, mercy, look
there's Venus over there.
We bitch about nothing and everything.
His dad, no girls, fucked boss.
The past four years, the next two days,
the months ahead, our separate ways,
the dorms, Fort Hood, the infantry,
you bastards gone, what's left for me.
Then we wait for the sun to drop, breathing in
the electrical hum and darkening silence.
Time now, dark enough to cut into
our corrugated liquor box,
stuffed full with legal cones and whistlers,
roman candles, wimpy shit
leftover from some family picnic.
And then – the bag, illegal, fire dragons,
rockets with Chinese names.
Ten Thousand Thunder. Silver Rain.
Peony of Gold. Smoke Chrysanthemum.
Using cigs as punks we fire them off.
Each rocket glares right past the wires,
sparks falling on the mud below,
exploding showers of gold and silver.
Seven times the metal gray of the tower
flashes visible, bathed by hot magnesium strobes.
Darkness again. In the car, as we strain to see
the parallel wires disappearing in the black distance,
we talk casually about that chick in trig.
Greg Ennis