Miles Ago and Years Away By Ken Gierke

thirteen and fourteen during those summers

sleeping bag and a rolled-up shirt

for bedding, we slept in the backyard

John’s, Mike’s, mine, in rotation

every weekend under the stars

not that we slept all that much

too much to do and never enough darkness

especially if a yard light came on

as we hopped into a neighbor’s pool,

skinny dipping of course, the neighbor

yelling as we made our exit

bare-assed and clutching our clothes

on to the next adventure, yard to yard

I’m sure those people finally sold their house

but it probably didn’t help

when they woke every Saturday morning

to find their For Sale sign

sitting on their neighbor’s front lawn

and that garage with a covered side patio

sure came in handy, not that we needed a garage

but the picnic table was a nice spot to sit

and have a beer from the tap in the wall

I wonder if that guy ever figured out

why his keg of Schmidt’s emptied so fast

or that early Sunday morning late in the year,

when I walked to John’s house, I Can See for Miles

playing on my transistor, to find him

loading the Courier Express into his mom’s ’62 Caddy

I hopped in so I could run the papers as he drove

the car, back before his dad was any the wiser

skinny dipping and swapping For Sale signs

are decades behind me, and good luck

finding a bottle of Schmidt’s – give me craft beer

any time, preferably a stout – but every time

I read the Sunday funnies I can see for years

as I think of that joy ride back in ’67

Ken Gierke is a retired truck driver, transplanted to mid-Missouri from Western New York. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming both in print and online in such places as The Rye Whiskey Review, As It Ought to Be Magazine, Amethyst Review, Rusty Truck, Trailer Park Quarterly, The Gasconade Review, and River Dog Zine. His first collection of poetry, Glass Awash, was published in 2022, and his second collection, Heron Spirit, was published in 2024 – both by Spartan Press. His website: https://rivrvlogr.com/