of course everyone knows what a field test is —
don’t they?
you bring your brooms of wooden handles and whatever it was they made brooms of
before plastic
metal wire wraps to hold the good stuff in place
balsa wood rocket nose cones and spray paint, silver or gold
engines made of what launches fireworks
you’d have to have been of my generation
a child is just that way
he or she expects a fucking miracle because this is America, America gawed damn it
there is no plan here
there is a launch button
who forking knows what a launch button does?
nose cones are snow cones in another register
colorful, flavorful, barefoot, wandering
the world is supposed to make sense, gawed damn it!
still, it was so much fun to walk atop fences made of cedar and dreams
we went unnoticed
plastic army castings and we’d set them afire