things peoples' mothers say to them about boys

i passed other gods and goners today
brain-cell, stem-cell dreams dissolved
into underhanded gestures
over-shadowed eyes.
each one of us is a probable future.
it occurred to me suddenly like
the changing of the guard
that adam and eve even give a damn
and that's what makes us gods and goners
different.

the coursing of my blood matched perfectly
the cursing of the bell at
two-sixteen. flat, violent, short.
i will write another protest song when my
days are short and my years are long
and in the dead of winter i will pass once more.
these hallways will be old and worn,
sold and born-again.
because my cells are eternal.

i wrote the same damn poem today
baseball, midnight fantasies melted away
i was left with bombed-out veins
smooth liver.
i am thirty years down the road and wondering.