Hill Dusty and Gnats

Hill Dusty

Through a dusty film camera, hand-held,

projected on beige walls,

we watch our distant hero.

His sun-beaten brown shirtless chest,

grainy white tube socks,

     and patched up trick deck

drops in

     on a hellish hill

potholes and everything –

     almost vertical

almost clipping his wings and yanking him down

stretching out his knotty hair behind his zooming figure

     like the cords of a parachute.

We all lean forward

     to balance out the acceleration.

His body buzzes down the gritty asphalt

     – suspended knees

he’s halfway down the hill

and through a cross-street in the foreground

     rolls a

         black-white-and-blue

and while his legs and feet wobble

     our hero holds his stance against all physics,

         – raising his right arm

     straight up over his chest

and unleashes the bird.

We raise our arms and holler,

and lie back into our stances

     knowing our hero can fly.

Gnats

in those summers it almost seemed like forgoing sunscreen and

     tumbling 30 feet down

95-degree heat-absorbent gritty asphalt hills

would do for us what

     $200/week exfoliation and moisturizer routines did for the hot girls and their moms

Image: Screenshot from GX1000: Best of Sean Greene’s Hill Bombs by Thrasher Magazine.