Rumspringa*

for Lucy Walker

He spears into a world of trailers parks
and bonfires burning in glassy eyes
of teenagers who chain-smoke holiness
into bitter ash. Bottles of rum, vodka
and Southern Comfort stack shelves
like trumpets for the dead. Back home
in Indiana, he thinks of parents in horse
-buggies, in carriages drawn in morning mist.
He thinks of the simple life, of the fan-shaped
beards, of the gun-metal sky. Posters of Tupac
spatter the walls, a television plugged
into a battery. He is lost in the
wilderness of keg-parties.
A lifetime of excess wedged into a few
months. He yearns his father's voice
in the beer-colored night
God speaks in one ear, Satan in the other.
He looks to the pasture, reaches out through
the thin curtains to crown himself king
of a paradise of forklifts and fireflies.

by Radames Ortiz


*Rumspringa refers to the Amish rite of passage, which begins when an Amish child reaches 16 years of age, and continues until they decide whether they want to join or leave the Amish church.

*Rad's blog: http://theamplifiedbard.blogspot.com/