Carolyn Oulton
The Truth of the Matter
Filled with leather toast - do you remember
Those Playdo kegs of jam?
How obscene in rows of chomping jowls.
Riotous. Unleashed.
Smoking in the hour with scrabbling
Matches, hostile lights. Of course
We crouched with backs against the wall.
Insurmountable need.
We thought you didn’t know
And so we razed you.
You made us pick up leaves,
We mocked your clothes.
Gatings struck us, and that thing
You said we couldn’t have -
Real life. Mine felt real enough.
Fading in a friend’s blood.
Perhaps you should have told us that you knew;
Friends, diets, they weren’t text book teens.
But outside that arena, I can tell
That you were human too.
Page(s) 142
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