When I Was Young

When I was young in the sleepy town of Hokes Bluff
I knew everyone by name
All adults were “mister” or “misses.”
Horses grew families across the street
And the milkman delivered cold milk on Tuesday mornings.

Wrinkled leathered faces told the life stories of farmers and their yielded crops,
And gas was pumped by the man everyone called Frank,
Who never let a dirty windshield go unnoticed.

When I was young, I could walk to the nearby drugstore
To buy an twenty-five cent RC in an icy glass bottle.
Tent revivals set up camp in the pasture near my home,
And if I was lucky, I could catch the shiny silver dollars
They cast out from the pulpit.

When I was young, we picked maypops
And lined them down the street
So that we could hear the loud “pop”
As we cracked them with our speeding bikes.

When the summer sun rose, my auburn-haired sister and I
Roamed the neighborhood, which only hosted ten homes,
Not returning until dark or Mother made us come home.
Tanned or dirty, not sure which.

And when the evening came upon us,
We sat on the front porch in rusty metal chairs
And listened to the crickets’ love songs
Or caught the glowing lightening bugs
in mason jars covered by slitted aluminum foil.