Can you remember that first drum, the one with the metal rim & those sticks with their cotton knobs & how you proudly marched around the living room & the freight train that whistled by at precisely four thirty every Tuesday & Julie’s eyes which were alternately blue & green & how she taunted you across the fence & her dog Buckskin who howled into the night & running home to mom with a broken tooth & no one home & blood in your mouth & the long climb to the roof where he was hammering away at his homemade boat & Jeremiah practicing his saxophone & the sun heating the tar to soup & that time Andrea fell through the skylight & had to be stitched quickly & butterflies on the milkweed & the sheriff coming after you with a warrant & everyone staring & pointing their fingers & turning away & how you left town & hitchhiked to Canada & the waitress who thought you were from California & offered her bed & stole the money from your boot & the last day of July when you won sixty on the slots & caught the bus which crashed in Detroit & the war games with live ammo & a jazz band on a flatbed & the B & O which ran all the way home & no one there to meet you except a guy playing bongos on a bench & a small girl asleep in his lap.