MY FIFTEENTH YEAR
I remember the schools
of dead carp on the riverbank,
the bonfires, the first booze
and the first smoke
rolling through me like buffalo.
I remember the novelty
of let-downs, the tilt
of my reflection,
which I looked for everywhere.
I remember the way a friend forgave
his father and mother,
how we were told to smile
for pictures, the murder in our eyes
when we were betrayed
or thought we were betrayed,
the stabbing green shoots
of new emotions. I remember growth spurts
and how my genitalia
ruled the timid logic of my brain
like a little general with a red face
and a tight grip.
I remember snickering at suicides,
rolling my eyes at old age
and at what I considered stupid and banal,
which was almost everything
except the future
and strange foreign places.
I remember thinking
the world was mine
and that I would live
as no one ever had lived before,
and as no one ever would live again.
—from Rattle #71, Spring 2021
__________
Mather Schneider: “Sitting around one day during the quarantine and our ridiculous times, memories of my high school days came back to me, when we hung out on the Illinois River among the washed up dead fish drinking Mad Dog and trying to get laid. The poem came out almost fully formed, as they say, unlike human beings. I remember even back then I thought we were living in an absurd society, reading Camus and ready to tackle the world. Now here I am, 50 years old, wishing I was 15 again.”
