Flash Boys In Our Day
A prose poem memory
Flash boys rude boys we were too
fearless prowlers of alleys, parks, and quiet dark corners
unscarred faces gleaming in the warmth of a palm-cupped flame and a borrowed smoke
raucous laughers in the shadows, triumphant over shared bottles and lies
“God’s honest truth, Jimmy, she had her hand down my pants right at the bar!”
careful casual posers, leaning one foot up against the brick of the old pub, hands pocketed
shouting shared jokes as we fell in each by each, bold-shy flirting with the pretty girls and each other
breakers of rules, howling conviction over convention, disdaining the timid city mice who could never be us
scooping life in great handfuls and tossing it away hardly tasted because there was always more
flash boys rude boys in our day
in our day
now the boy who tumbled into sadness, madness and the angry kid with the uncertain, perfect smile and too many others we’ll not drink with them again on this side of the river
the rest of us have swallowed and been swallowed faded into words and worries and boxes of consumables delivered
I still see the flash boys, the rude boys but they do not see me
their scornful eyes glimmer over my silver threads and fallen pebbled flesh
I cannot go where they go
but neither can they go where I have been