Toltecs
.
Radio about a foot-and-a-half
wide swinging at his side.
Three boys abreast and one
has the radio playing loud rock
they talk to as they walk
past my house. Three boys
dressed in their style
of short jackets and caps pulled
down almost to their eyes.
They might as well be naked
boys in the hot sun singing
in a changing voice the songs
they like to hear. They might
as well be boys chipping rocks
into weapons or tools.
But they are only boys on the way
someplace. They have to be men
sometime and no time for idle
rambling to rock music unless
they take jobs in the outdoors
where they can still be boys
and dress to get dirty. They can
be boys underneath the culture
forever because some other man
will gladly take those boys
and chip them down into tools
or weapons or bake them into
the walls of his own idea
of empire.
by Eloise Klein Healy
from Artemis in Echo Park
Firebrand Books, Ithaca, N.Y
.