1983

wednesday is today
yesterday was 1983
yes, i remember
(africa, allentown, all those years ago)
phone home birthday party plates
holding dark brown crumbs
at safe distance
from the hungry alligator
on my shirt

test scores were high
(meant nothing,
just cared that i got a new activision game
as a reward)
four years of awkward adolescence
awaited the innocence
like a chainsaw staring down a tree
and i, a weak birch
wandering in the woods

when i came out the other side
the alligator had stopped breathing