Skateboard Blues

He cracked his skateboard in half doing a slide yesterday.
Though it didn’t work, “It was cool” and it made him grin.
Today he stalks the street, angling the lawnmower
Ahead of him, searching for quick cash to buy
Another deck, a more expensive one, righteous
With amped weight capacity, one that won’t snap
In two on a slide. I have maybe sixty-seven cents
In my purse, though yesterday I charged two pairs
Of boots at Penney’s. He stops a block away
At a home of  high grass, a willing customer,
His parallel stride just visible through the dense branches
Of a sycamore as old as this town. When he was five,
The three of us used to walk around a different block,
And he pulled the wagon his grandfather made him.
Once he asked, Do we have to go together or can we
Go in pieces? We laughed at him then, but yes, we have
Gone in pieces. I can no longer see him, but I can hear
Where he is and where he will always be. Whole.

–Shaun Perkins

An old poem, posted here for Luke on his 23rd birthday today, August 31, 2013