McCumber’s Junkyard

It was Disney World

for poor kids,
those hot days
playing inside
rusty car bodies
at the junkyard.

One red wedge
high heeled shoe
from the dumpster

and I was not that
frizzy haired girl
from Palm Tree
Trailer Court.

I was Cinderella
in a gold coach.

Donny Jonson
was not
a frog face boy
whose old man
was doing time
in San Quentin.

He was a prince
with tail pipes,
greasy chains
and a deflated
bicycle tire

who was going
to make
a ferris wheel

that would lift us high
above the stench
of aluminum roofs
and cheap grape wine

to wish on a planet
we thought was a star.

Those were the days
before we grew
tall enough
to find out

we were just
goofy losers

without tickets
or admittance
to anything

on the wrong side
of everything

and we were
dreaming
in a steaming
heap of lies.

You Just Can’t Kill Us

For The Teacher Who Said
I’d Be Dead By Now

You just can’t kill us.
We’re dandelions
on a green front lawn.

We’re up your crack.
We multiply
like frigging rabbits

like mold growing
on energy
efficient windows

like furry things
who won’t scurry
from soft white light
on your carpeted hall.

We make you gasp
when we sashay past
in short little shorts
at the shopping mall.

We beat a rhythm
on old store benches.
We’re a rock of ages
in wind skinny fields.

We’ve got permanent
roots of dirt in the lines
of our palms and street
on the bottoms of our feet.

We flip off your
gated neighborhood
every time we breathe.

Reason #589

Beside miles of woods
and a single-wide trailer
in a muddy front yard

there’s a handmade sign
that says

Big Loolah’s Beauty Barn

Electrolysis by Appt. Only

Palm Reading – Spiritual Advice

Mary K Cosmetics Distributor

*Collards*Rutabagas*Bar-BQ*

Taxidermy Services

Yard Sale Every Thursday

Your Old Bible Rebound

Biggest minnows & crickets
in the county

On Site Engine Repair &
Brake Re-alignment.

Reason #589 why
I love rural Carolina:

One stop shopping.

A prolific writer, you can check out Julie’s writing at http://juliebuff.wordpress.com/.