Milton

by John Wieners

down at the corner
I worked in the variety & Drug store

having nothing to do
I hung out with kids at the wall

in a small town, stomping streets
It’s nothing lovelier in the world

that passion, autumn leaves
playing ball each afternoon after school:

hating Sunday, putting on new clothes
and when nobody was home

did we knock it around in each other’s pad.
Mickey & André

Dorchester, Bucky Burgess’, just
making out as much noise as it could

play the radio & sorta take off our clothes.
Purity had then the biggest sound in town.

Dating, sipping sodas out of straws
up the square & elsewhere

Those were days when everyone
knew who you were

And did we wig behind it ?
The wildroot cream hair oil

Meant what everyday’s mail means now.
And the girls more than plastic poets show.

To swell millionaires I cannot go
as I hung out around down corners after school.