We go about stabbing Larry O’Neal
six blocks from river’s knife
while neon sings from the taco joint
and used records mutter, in plastic,
the slap I earn for singing names,
not just Larry but the rest of dead Topeka:
Sam Eisland, Nikki Mendoza, Bruce Whaley,
Randy Ijams, dead and black and my age
tied to rails by the Kansas River,
rope forgotten in great desegregation.
Shawnee County binds his arms and ankles,
as boxcars ballast, rock rails held in steel.
In another early death, midnight’s Cadillac
wrecks on the traffic circle, and I,
out walking, run to address the damage.
A cop asks why are you in the car? I’m not,
I’m not. I’m in the blond kid’s basement
dashing all the spices into a jelly jar,
celery salt, mace, curry, bay, a potion
we dare each other drink, tongue-disgusted,
yet go upstairs changed by countertop erotics.
Topeka’s grand opening never happens.
Bison wander the unpalleted limestone.
A padlock holds Boyle’s Joyland closed
where I ride the tilt-a-whirl again, spin
safe in canvas straps as faces blend.
Iron belt clanks in the turning. Leaning
into the tobacco of a stranger’s sleeve,
I let my cap fly, and it lands blue beyond
the shaking rails among the fallen change.
Skee-ball tickets kiss with red tongue
the clarinet music closing magenta
over our eyelids as bumper cars crash
beside the river, leaves fall, tilt, whirl
on the surface, the surface that carries us
with uncertain carriage, seasonal, and thin.