Out by the Swamp Cooler by Kevin M. Hibshman

You held tightly to your cigarette and to your resolve.

I studied the fresh tread marks in the mud and clung to the bottle as if to my life.

In the distance, the sound of drunken laughter was beginning to grow sadder with the sunset.

I followed your gaze out over the abandoned smoke stacks to the east.

The rotting and rusting debris kept silent but went right on disintegrating in front of us.

I came here a boy but must leave as a man.

Out by the swamp cooler, where you first held my hand.

Kevin M. Hibshman has had poems published in many journals and magazines world wide. In addition, he has edited his poetry zine, Fearless, since 1990 and is the author of sixteen chapbooks including Love Sex Death Dreams (Green Bean Press, 2000) and Incessant Shining (Alternating Current, 2011).