Late May

Hanging out, walking down the narrow
walkways they put on the sides of steel
bridges. Going down all the hills in the
neighborhood is a lot easier than making
your way back up them. A bent nail is driven into
old boards they salvaged to make themselves
a back deck, it’s holding together just about
as well as you’d expect it to.
A broken double A battery leaks acid into the
gaps between the sidewalk tiles, and some kids
crouch around to look at it.
Baseballs ricochet off the plastic siding
of houses and the occasional satellite dish,
which fucks with the reception, and sends
off work men into the streets to stop the game.
Popping old paint balls, they found in the field,
on the concrete pipes, in the basin, and watching
as they melt permanently into the surface. Then
running back to their houses when it’s so dark
they couldn’t even see.