Night Riders

If not for the mangroves and dunes, Granny and

her back room, or the creeks and swamps and

marshes, it might have mattered more that we had

been raised on cinder block, stacked two by two

under a single-wide trailer, toddling through a red-

black forest of thick shag, silver-lined, plucking out

curly shavings of aluminum because they laid the

carpet before they cut out the windows.

When the trailer pitched in storm, a snare played

by the branches of cypress, we were knocked out by

the assault of cloud cannons, pelting the roof in

rapid-fire–so sound was sleep, so deep our dreams,

and we would ride her into midnight, the trailer

with its hitch pointing forward like a prow–

but that was us too. There. Then. Now.