A Poem for My Friend John Munley, Poem 16

Disclaimer:

Youth is supposed to have no future.
Folly is commerce.
We lived when bombs were just boom—
smoky black cherries with rope thick fuses,
that burned slow enough to play Hot Potato.
Spy vs Spy days, when 9/11 was only a fraction.
Events were flukes not terror.
Even Oklahoma City had no echoes in our hometown.
A dull thud, a bomb in a cartoon box
the nation sat on to squelch the noise.

Crammed in our getaway car (a Chevy Suburban),
our government targets (mailboxes),
taunted us with their wholeness,
their tin can sheen, middle finger flags.
In our secret explosives laboratory, (Sean’s garage)
we spoiled for the fight, drunk
on the citrusy nectar of Dew.
A fogged night, the wisps caterpillaring the streets,
we struck out for the richest neighborhood,
bombs in the backseat,
chattering in tinny tones.

When John burst
from the doors of the car,
holding that pipe bomb like a relay runner,
we didn’t know his heart
was ticking down to a final day.
Later, a head full of Olympic dream,
John was running towards being
a something more, a greatness—
when he collapsed mid-race,
in a woods, into an easy quiet.

It was a huge bang.
The bills, the birthday cards, the junk mail,
spread over and out like confetti,
and John sprinted back, fluid and steady,
all of us up, shouting and clapping.