The Last day of Summer, Helena, 1966

Uncle Jimmy worked the night shift

maintenance for Helena Chemical

late afternoon, he helped me

scramble to the tin roof

of the old storage shed

Then he dropped his F100 into reverse

and was gone for the night

me and my brother

were having a sleep over

with our best friends

from when I could first walk,

Harry James and Donna Ray,

almost like cousins only maybe better.

We stood on the roof eating mulberries

and painting ourselves red

Aunt Betty stuck her head out

the kitchen door as the sunlight

struck the east bank of the Mississippi

and warned that when dark came

so would the mosquitoes

and it was nearly suppertime already

but I kept eating until the swarm hit

then I scuttled down the side of the shed

and ran to the kitchen where she stopped me

and beat the biters off with rolled up newspaper.

Go wash up, she said, and I mean a bath,

all of you, y’all are a mess, and we were,

and we washed our naked bodies

and got most of the stain off,

wrapped in towels we ate hot dogs

and watched Have Gun, Will Travel,

then Bonanza, then off to bed,

tomorrow we would go to bed

hundreds of miles away

and Harry James and Donna Ray

would catch the big yellow bus

that ran down the river road